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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/837-0.txt b/837-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e343b60 --- /dev/null +++ b/837-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9455 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Story of the Amulet, by E. Nesbit + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Story of the Amulet + +Author: E. Nesbit + +Release Date: March, 1997 [eBook #837] +[Most recently updated: April 7, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Jo Churcher and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE AMULET *** + + + + +The Story of the Amulet + +by E. Nesbit + + +Contents + + CHAPTER I. THE PSAMMEAD + CHAPTER II. THE HALF AMULET + CHAPTER III. THE PAST + CHAPTER IV. EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO + CHAPTER V. THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE + CHAPTER VI. THE WAY TO BABYLON + CHAPTER VII. “THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT” + CHAPTER VIII. THE QUEEN IN LONDON + CHAPTER IX. ATLANTIS + CHAPTER X. THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL AND JULIUS CAESAR + CHAPTER XI. BEFORE PHARAOH + CHAPTER XII. THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY + CHAPTER XIII. THE SHIPWRECK ON THE TIN ISLANDS + CHAPTER XIV. THE HEART’S DESIRE + + +TO + +Dr Wallis Budge +of the British Museum as a +small token of gratitude for his +unfailing kindness and help +in the making of it + + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE PSAMMEAD + + +There were once four children who spent their summer holidays in a +white house, happily situated between a sandpit and a chalkpit. One day +they had the good fortune to find in the sandpit a strange creature. +Its eyes were on long horns like snail’s eyes, and it could move them +in and out like telescopes. It had ears like a bat’s ears, and its +tubby body was shaped like a spider’s and covered with thick soft +fur—and it had hands and feet like a monkey’s. It told the +children—whose names were Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane—that it was a +Psammead or sand-fairy. (Psammead is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, +old, old, and its birthday was almost at the very beginning of +everything. And it had been buried in the sand for thousands of years. +But it still kept its fairylikeness, and part of this fairylikeness was +its power to give people whatever they wished for. You know fairies +have always been able to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now +found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of +just the right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned +out very oddly indeed. In the end their unwise wishings landed them in +what Robert called “a very tight place indeed”, and the Psammead +consented to help them out of it in return for their promise never +never to ask it to grant them any more wishes, and never to tell anyone +about it, because it did not want to be bothered to give wishes to +anyone ever any more. At the moment of parting Jane said politely— + +“I wish we were going to see you again some day.” + +And the Psammead, touched by this friendly thought, granted the wish. +The book about all this is called _Five Children and It_, and it ends +up in a most tiresome way by saying— + +“The children _did_ see the Psammead again, but it was not in the +sandpit; it was—but I must say no more—” + +The reason that nothing more could be said was that I had not then been +able to find out exactly when and where the children met the Psammead +again. Of course I knew they would meet it, because it was a beast of +its word, and when it said a thing would happen, that thing happened +without fail. How different from the people who tell us about what +weather it is going to be on Thursday next, in London, the South Coast, +and Channel! + +The summer holidays during which the Psammead had been found and the +wishes given had been wonderful holidays in the country, and the +children had the highest hopes of just such another holiday for the +next summer. The winter holidays were beguiled by the wonderful +happenings of _The Phœnix and the Carpet_, and the loss of these two +treasures would have left the children in despair, but for the splendid +hope of their next holiday in the country. The world, they felt, and +indeed had some reason to feel, was full of wonderful things—and they +were really the sort of people that wonderful things happen to. So they +looked forward to the summer holiday; but when it came everything was +different, and very, very horrid. Father had to go out to Manchuria to +telegraph news about the war to the tiresome paper he wrote for—the +_Daily Bellower_, or something like that, was its name. And Mother, +poor dear Mother, was away in Madeira, because she had been very ill. +And The Lamb—I mean the baby—was with her. And Aunt Emma, who was +Mother’s sister, had suddenly married Uncle Reginald, who was Father’s +brother, and they had gone to China, which is much too far off for you +to expect to be asked to spend the holidays in, however fond your aunt +and uncle may be of you. So the children were left in the care of old +Nurse, who lived in Fitzroy Street, near the British Museum, and though +she was always very kind to them, and indeed spoiled them far more than +would be good for the most grown-up of us, the four children felt +perfectly wretched, and when the cab had driven off with Father and all +his boxes and guns and the sheepskin, with blankets and the aluminium +mess-kit inside it, the stoutest heart quailed, and the girls broke +down altogether, and sobbed in each other’s arms, while the boys each +looked out of one of the long gloomy windows of the parlour, and tried +to pretend that no boy would be such a muff as to cry. + +I hope you notice that they were not cowardly enough to cry till their +Father had gone; they knew he had quite enough to upset him without +that. But when he was gone everyone felt as if it had been trying not +to cry all its life, and that it must cry now, if it died for it. So +they cried. + +Tea—with shrimps and watercress—cheered them a little. The watercress +was arranged in a hedge round a fat glass salt-cellar, a tasteful +device they had never seen before. But it was not a cheerful meal. + +After tea Anthea went up to the room that had been Father’s, and when +she saw how dreadfully he wasn’t there, and remembered how every minute +was taking him further and further from her, and nearer and nearer to +the guns of the Russians, she cried a little more. Then she thought of +Mother, ill and alone, and perhaps at that very moment wanting a little +girl to put eau-de-cologne on her head, and make her sudden cups of +tea, and she cried more than ever. And then she remembered what Mother +had said, the night before she went away, about Anthea being the eldest +girl, and about trying to make the others happy, and things like that. +So she stopped crying, and thought instead. And when she had thought as +long as she could bear she washed her face and combed her hair, and +went down to the others, trying her best to look as though crying were +an exercise she had never even heard of. + +She found the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by the +efforts of Robert, who, to make the time pass, was pulling Jane’s +hair—not hard, but just enough to tease. + +“Look here,” said Anthea. “Let’s have a palaver.” This word dated from +the awful day when Cyril had carelessly wished that there were Red +Indians in England—and there had been. The word brought back memories +of last summer holidays and everyone groaned; they thought of the white +house with the beautiful tangled garden—late roses, asters, marigold, +sweet mignonette, and feathery asparagus—of the wilderness which +someone had once meant to make into an orchard, but which was now, as +Father said, “five acres of thistles haunted by the ghosts of baby +cherry-trees”. They thought of the view across the valley, where the +lime-kilns looked like Aladdin’s palaces in the sunshine, and they +thought of their own sandpit, with its fringe of yellowy grasses and +pale-stringy-stalked wild flowers, and the little holes in the cliff +that were the little sand-martins’ little front doors. And they thought +of the free fresh air smelling of thyme and sweetbriar, and the scent +of the wood-smoke from the cottages in the lane—and they looked round +old Nurse’s stuffy parlour, and Jane said— + +“Oh, how different it all is!” + +It was. Old Nurse had been in the habit of letting lodgings, till +Father gave her the children to take care of. And her rooms were +furnished “for letting”. Now it is a very odd thing that no one ever +seems to furnish a room “for letting” in a bit the same way as one +would furnish it for living in. This room had heavy dark red stuff +curtains—the colour that blood would not make a stain on—with coarse +lace curtains inside. The carpet was yellow, and violet, with bits of +grey and brown oilcloth in odd places. The fireplace had shavings and +tinsel in it. There was a very varnished mahogany chiffonier, or +sideboard, with a lock that wouldn’t act. There were hard chairs—far +too many of them—with crochet antimacassars slipping off their seats, +all of which sloped the wrong way. The table wore a cloth of a cruel +green colour with a yellow chain-stitch pattern round it. Over the +fireplace was a looking-glass that made you look much uglier than you +really were, however plain you might be to begin with. Then there was a +mantelboard with maroon plush and wool fringe that did not match the +plush; a dreary clock like a black marble tomb—it was silent as the +grave too, for it had long since forgotten how to tick. And there were +painted glass vases that never had any flowers in, and a painted +tambourine that no one ever played, and painted brackets with nothing +on them. + +“And maple-framed engravings of the Queen, +The Houses of Parliament, the Plains of Heaven, +And of a blunt-nosed woodman’s flat return.” + + +There were two books—last December’s _Bradshaw_, and an odd volume of +Plumridge’s _Commentary on Thessalonians_. There were—but I cannot +dwell longer on this painful picture. It was indeed, as Jane said, very +different. + +“Let’s have a palaver,” said Anthea again. + +“What about?” said Cyril, yawning. + +“There’s nothing to have _anything_ about,” said Robert kicking the leg +of the table miserably. + +“I don’t want to play,” said Jane, and her tone was grumpy. + +Anthea tried very hard not to be cross. She succeeded. + +“Look here,” she said, “don’t think I want to be preachy or a beast in +any way, but I want to what Father calls define the situation. Do you +agree?” + +“Fire ahead,” said Cyril without enthusiasm. + +“Well then. We all know the reason we’re staying here is because Nurse +couldn’t leave her house on account of the poor learned gentleman on +the top-floor. And there was no one else Father could entrust to take +care of us—and you know it’s taken a lot of money, Mother’s going to +Madeira to be made well.” + +Jane sniffed miserably. + +“Yes, I know,” said Anthea in a hurry, “but don’t let’s think about how +horrid it all is. I mean we can’t go to things that cost a lot, but we +must do _something_. And I know there are heaps of things you can see +in London without paying for them, and I thought we’d go and see them. +We are all quite old now, and we haven’t got The Lamb—” + +Jane sniffed harder than before. + +“I mean no one can say ‘No’ because of him, dear pet. And I thought we +_must_ get Nurse to see how quite old we are, and let us go out by +ourselves, or else we shall never have any sort of a time at all. And I +vote we see everything there is, and let’s begin by asking Nurse to +give us some bits of bread and we’ll go to St James’s Park. There are +ducks there, I know, we can feed them. Only we must make Nurse let us +go by ourselves.” + +“Hurrah for liberty!” said Robert, “but she won’t.” + +“Yes she will,” said Jane unexpectedly. “_I_ thought about that this +morning, and I asked Father, and he said yes; and what’s more he told +old Nurse we might, only he said we must always say where we wanted to +go, and if it was right she would let us.” + +“Three cheers for thoughtful Jane,” cried Cyril, now roused at last +from his yawning despair. “I say, let’s go now.” + +So they went, old Nurse only begging them to be careful of crossings, +and to ask a policeman to assist in the more difficult cases. But they +were used to crossings, for they had lived in Camden Town and knew the +Kentish Town Road where the trams rush up and down like mad at all +hours of the day and night, and seem as though, if anything, they would +rather run over you than not. + +They had promised to be home by dark, but it was July, so dark would be +very late indeed, and long past bedtime. + +They started to walk to St James’s Park, and all their pockets were +stuffed with bits of bread and the crusts of toast, to feed the ducks +with. They started, I repeat, but they never got there. + +Between Fitzroy Street and St James’s Park there are a great many +streets, and, if you go the right way you will pass a great many shops +that you cannot possibly help stopping to look at. The children stopped +to look at several with gold-lace and beads and pictures and jewellery +and dresses, and hats, and oysters and lobsters in their windows, and +their sorrow did not seem nearly so impossible to bear as it had done +in the best parlour at No. 300, Fitzroy Street. + +Presently, by some wonderful chance turn of Robert’s (who had been +voted Captain because the girls thought it would be good for him—and +indeed he thought so himself—and of course Cyril couldn’t vote against +him because it would have looked like a mean jealousy), they came into +the little interesting criss-crossy streets that held the most +interesting shops of all—the shops where live things were sold. There +was one shop window entirely filled with cages, and all sorts of +beautiful birds in them. The children were delighted till they +remembered how they had once wished for wings themselves, and had had +them—and then they felt how desperately unhappy anything with wings +must be if it is shut up in a cage and not allowed to fly. + +“It must be fairly beastly to be a bird in a cage,” said Cyril. “Come +on!” + +They went on, and Cyril tried to think out a scheme for making his +fortune as a gold-digger at Klondyke, and then buying all the caged +birds in the world and setting them free. Then they came to a shop that +sold cats, but the cats were in cages, and the children could not help +wishing someone would buy all the cats and put them on hearthrugs, +which are the proper places for cats. And there was the dog-shop, and +that was not a happy thing to look at either, because all the dogs were +chained or caged, and all the dogs, big and little, looked at the four +children with sad wistful eyes and wagged beseeching tails as if they +were trying to say, “Buy me! buy me! buy me! and let me go for a walk +with you; oh, do buy me, and buy my poor brothers too! Do! do! do!” +They almost said, “Do! do! do!” plain to the ear, as they whined; all +but one big Irish terrier, and he growled when Jane patted him. + +“Grrrrr,” he seemed to say, as he looked at them from the back corner +of his eye—“_You_ won’t buy me. Nobody will—ever—I shall die chained +up—and I don’t know that I care how soon it is, either!” + +I don’t know that the children would have understood all this, only +once they had been in a besieged castle, so they knew how hateful it is +to be kept in when you want to get out. + +Of course they could not buy any of the dogs. They did, indeed, ask the +price of the very, very smallest, and it was sixty-five pounds—but that +was because it was a Japanese toy spaniel like the Queen once had her +portrait painted with, when she was only Princess of Wales. But the +children thought, if the smallest was all that money, the biggest would +run into thousands—so they went on. + +And they did not stop at any more cat or dog or bird shops, but passed +them by, and at last they came to a shop that seemed as though it only +sold creatures that did not much mind where they were—such as goldfish +and white mice, and sea-anemones and other aquarium beasts, and lizards +and toads, and hedgehogs and tortoises, and tame rabbits and +guinea-pigs. And there they stopped for a long time, and fed the +guinea-pigs with bits of bread through the cage-bars, and wondered +whether it would be possible to keep a sandy-coloured double-lop in the +basement of the house in Fitzroy Street. + +“I don’t suppose old Nurse would mind _very_ much,” said Jane. “Rabbits +are most awfully tame sometimes. I expect it would know her voice and +follow her all about.” + +“She’d tumble over it twenty times a day,” said Cyril; “now a snake—” + +“There aren’t any snakes,” said Robert hastily, “and besides, I never +could cotton to snakes somehow—I wonder why.” + +“Worms are as bad,” said Anthea, “and eels and slugs—I think it’s +because we don’t like things that haven’t got legs.” + +“Father says snakes have got legs hidden away inside of them,” said +Robert. + +“Yes—and he says _we’ve_ got tails hidden away inside _us_—but it +doesn’t either of it come to anything _really_,” said Anthea. “I hate +things that haven’t any legs.” + +“It’s worse when they have too many,” said Jane with a shudder, “think +of centipedes!” + +They stood there on the pavement, a cause of some inconvenience to the +passersby, and thus beguiled the time with conversation. Cyril was +leaning his elbow on the top of a hutch that had seemed empty when they +had inspected the whole edifice of hutches one by one, and he was +trying to reawaken the interest of a hedgehog that had curled itself +into a ball earlier in the interview, when a small, soft voice just +below his elbow said, quietly, plainly and quite unmistakably—not in +any squeak or whine that had to be translated—but in downright common +English— + +“Buy me—do—please buy me!” + +Cyril started as though he had been pinched, and jumped a yard away +from the hutch. + +“Come back—oh, come back!” said the voice, rather louder but still +softly; “stoop down and pretend to be tying up your bootlace—I see it’s +undone, as usual.” + +Cyril mechanically obeyed. He knelt on one knee on the dry, hot dusty +pavement, peered into the darkness of the hutch and found himself face +to face with—the Psammead! + +It seemed much thinner than when he had last seen it. It was dusty and +dirty, and its fur was untidy and ragged. It had hunched itself up into +a miserable lump, and its long snail’s eyes were drawn in quite tight +so that they hardly showed at all. + +“Listen,” said the Psammead, in a voice that sounded as though it would +begin to cry in a minute, “I don’t think the creature who keeps this +shop will ask a very high price for me. I’ve bitten him more than once, +and I’ve made myself look as common as I can. He’s never had a glance +from my beautiful, beautiful eyes. Tell the others I’m here—but tell +them to look at some of those low, common beasts while I’m talking to +you. The creature inside mustn’t think you care much about me, or he’ll +put a price upon me far, far beyond your means. I remember in the dear +old days last summer you never had much money. Oh—I never thought I +should be so glad to see you—I never did.” It sniffed, and shot out its +long snail’s eyes expressly to drop a tear well away from its fur. +“Tell the others I’m here, and then I’ll tell you exactly what to do +about buying me.” + +Cyril tied his bootlace into a hard knot, stood up and addressed the +others in firm tones— + +“Look here,” he said, “I’m not kidding—and I appeal to your honour,” an +appeal which in this family was never made in vain. “Don’t look at that +hutch—look at the white rat. Now you are not to look at that hutch +whatever I say.” + +He stood in front of it to prevent mistakes. + +“Now get yourselves ready for a great surprise. In that hutch there’s +an old friend of ours—_don’t_ look!—Yes; it’s the Psammead, the good +old Psammead! it wants us to buy it. It says you’re not to look at it. +Look at the white rat and count your money! On your honour don’t look!” + +The others responded nobly. They looked at the white rat till they +quite stared him out of countenance, so that he went and sat up on his +hind legs in a far corner and hid his eyes with his front paws, and +pretended he was washing his face. + +Cyril stooped again, busying himself with the other bootlace and +listened for the Psammead’s further instructions. + +“Go in,” said the Psammead, “and ask the price of lots of other things. +Then say, ‘What do you want for that monkey that’s lost its tail—the +mangy old thing in the third hutch from the end.’ Oh—don’t mind _my_ +feelings—call me a mangy monkey—I’ve tried hard enough to look like +one! I don’t think he’ll put a high price on me—I’ve bitten him eleven +times since I came here the day before yesterday. If he names a bigger +price than you can afford, say you wish you had the money.” + +“But you can’t give us wishes. I’ve promised never to have another wish +from you,” said the bewildered Cyril. + +“Don’t be a silly little idiot,” said the Sand-fairy in trembling but +affectionate tones, “but find out how much money you’ve got between +you, and do exactly what I tell you.” + +Cyril, pointing a stiff and unmeaning finger at the white rat, so as to +pretend that its charms alone employed his tongue, explained matters to +the others, while the Psammead hunched itself, and bunched itself, and +did its very best to make itself look uninteresting. + +Then the four children filed into the shop. + +“How much do you want for that white rat?” asked Cyril. + +“Eightpence,” was the answer. + +“And the guinea-pigs?” + +“Eighteenpence to five bob, according to the breed.” + +“And the lizards?” + +“Ninepence each.” + +“And toads?” + +“Fourpence. Now look here,” said the greasy owner of all this caged +life with a sudden ferocity which made the whole party back hurriedly +on to the wainscoting of hutches with which the shop was lined. “Lookee +here. I ain’t agoin’ to have you a comin’ in here a turnin’ the whole +place outer winder, an’ prizing every animile in the stock just for +your larks, so don’t think it! If you’re a buyer, _be_ a buyer—but I +never had a customer yet as wanted to buy mice, and lizards, and toads, +and guineas all at once. So hout you goes.” + +“Oh! wait a minute,” said the wretched Cyril, feeling how foolishly yet +well-meaningly he had carried out the Psammead’s instructions. “Just +tell me one thing. What do you want for the mangy old monkey in the +third hutch from the end?” + +The shopman only saw in this a new insult. + +“Mangy young monkey yourself,” said he; “get along with your blooming +cheek. Hout you goes!” + +“Oh! don’t be so cross,” said Jane, losing her head altogether, “don’t +you see he really _does_ want to know _that!_” + +“Ho! does ’e indeed,” sneered the merchant. Then he scratched his ear +suspiciously, for he was a sharp business man, and he knew the ring of +truth when he heard it. His hand was bandaged, and three minutes before +he would have been glad to sell the “mangy old monkey” for ten +shillings. Now— + +“Ho! ’E does, does ’e,” he said, “then two pun ten’s my price. He’s not +got his fellow that monkey ain’t, nor yet his match, not this side of +the equator, which he comes from. And the only one ever seen in London. +Ought to be in the Zoo. Two pun ten, down on the nail, or _hout_ you +goes!” + +The children looked at each other—twenty-three shillings and fivepence +was all they had in the world, and it would have been merely three and +fivepence, but for the sovereign which Father had given to them +“between them” at parting. + +“We’ve only twenty-three shillings and fivepence,” said Cyril, rattling +the money in his pocket. + +“Twenty-three farthings and somebody’s own cheek,” said the dealer, for +he did not believe that Cyril had so much money. + +There was a miserable pause. Then Anthea remembered, and said— + +“Oh! I _wish_ I had two pounds ten.” + +“So do I, Miss, I’m sure,” said the man with bitter politeness; “I wish +you “ad, I’m sure!” + +Anthea’s hand was on the counter, something seemed to slide under it. +She lifted it. There lay five bright half sovereigns. + +“Why, I _have_ got it after all,” she said; “here’s the money, now +let’s have the Sammy,... the monkey I mean.” + +The dealer looked hard at the money, but he made haste to put it in his +pocket. + +“I only hope you come by it honest,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. +He scratched his ear again. + +“Well!” he said, “I suppose I must let you have it, but it’s worth +thribble the money, so it is—” + +He slowly led the way out to the hutch—opened the door gingerly, and +made a sudden fierce grab at the Psammead, which the Psammead +acknowledged in one last long lingering bite. + +“Here, take the brute,” said the shopman, squeezing the Psammead so +tight that he nearly choked it. “It’s bit me to the marrow, it have.” + +The man’s eyes opened as Anthea held out her arms. “Don’t blame me if +it tears your face off its bones,” he said, and the Psammead made a +leap from his dirty horny hands, and Anthea caught it in hers, which +were not very clean, certainly, but at any rate were soft and pink, and +held it kindly and closely. + +“But you can’t take it home like that,” Cyril said, “we shall have a +crowd after us,” and indeed two errand boys and a policeman had already +collected. + +“I can’t give you nothink only a paper-bag, like what we put the +tortoises in,” said the man grudgingly. + +So the whole party went into the shop, and the shopman’s eyes nearly +came out of his head when, having given Anthea the largest paper-bag he +could find, he saw her hold it open, and the Psammead carefully creep +into it. + +“Well!” he said, “if that there don’t beat cockfighting! But p’raps +you’ve met the brute afore.” + +“Yes,” said Cyril affably, “he’s an old friend of ours.” + +“If I’d a known that,” the man rejoined, “you shouldn’t a had him under +twice the money. ’Owever,” he added, as the children disappeared, “I +ain’t done so bad, seeing as I only give five bob for the beast. But +then there’s the bites to take into account!” + +The children trembling in agitation and excitement, carried home the +Psammead, trembling in its paper-bag. + +When they got it home, Anthea nursed it, and stroked it, and would have +cried over it, if she hadn’t remembered how it hated to be wet. + +When it recovered enough to speak, it said— + +“Get me sand; silver sand from the oil and colour shop. And get me +plenty.” + +They got the sand, and they put it and the Psammead in the round bath +together, and it rubbed itself, and rolled itself, and shook itself and +scraped itself, and scratched itself, and preened itself, till it felt +clean and comfy, and then it scrabbled a hasty hole in the sand, and +went to sleep in it. + +The children hid the bath under the girls’ bed, and had supper. Old +Nurse had got them a lovely supper of bread and butter and fried +onions. She was full of kind and delicate thoughts. + +When Anthea woke the next morning, the Psammead was snuggling down +between her shoulder and Jane’s. + +“You have saved my life,” it said. “I know that man would have thrown +cold water on me sooner or later, and then I should have died. I saw +him wash out a guinea-pig’s hutch yesterday morning. I’m still +frightfully sleepy, I think I’ll go back to sand for another nap. Wake +the boys and this dormouse of a Jane, and when you’ve had your +breakfasts we’ll have a talk.” + +“Don’t _you_ want any breakfast?” asked Anthea. + +“I daresay I shall pick a bit presently,” it said; “but sand is all I +care about—it’s meat and drink to me, and coals and fire and wife and +children.” With these words it clambered down by the bedclothes and +scrambled back into the bath, where they heard it scratching itself out +of sight. + +“Well!” said Anthea, “anyhow our holidays won’t be dull _now_. We’ve +found the Psammead again.” + +“No,” said Jane, beginning to put on her stockings. “We shan’t be +_dull_—but it’ll be only like having a pet dog now it can’t give us +wishes.” + +“Oh, don’t be so discontented,” said Anthea. “If it can’t do anything +else it can tell us about Megatheriums and things.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE HALF AMULET + + +Long ago—that is to say last summer—the children, finding themselves +embarrassed by some wish which the Psammead had granted them, and which +the servants had not received in a proper spirit, had wished that the +servants might not notice the gifts which the Psammead gave. And when +they parted from the Psammead their last wish had been that they should +meet it again. Therefore they _had_ met it (and it was jolly lucky for +the Psammead, as Robert pointed out). Now, of course, you see that the +Psammead’s being where it was, was the consequence of one of their +wishes, and therefore was a Psammead-wish, and as such could not be +noticed by the servants. And it was soon plain that in the Psammead’s +opinion old Nurse was still a servant, although she had now a house of +her own, for she never noticed the Psammead at all. And that was as +well, for she would never have consented to allow the girls to keep an +animal and a bath of sand under their bed. + +When breakfast had been cleared away—it was a very nice breakfast with +hot rolls to it, a luxury quite out of the common way—Anthea went and +dragged out the bath, and woke the Psammead. It stretched and shook +itself. + +“You must have bolted your breakfast most unwholesomely,” it said, “you +can’t have been five minutes over it.” + +“We’ve been nearly an hour,” said Anthea. “Come—you know you promised.” + +“Now look here,” said the Psammead, sitting back on the sand and +shooting out its long eyes suddenly, “we’d better begin as we mean to +go on. It won’t do to have any misunderstanding, so I tell you plainly +that—” + +“Oh, _please_,” Anthea pleaded, “do wait till we get to the others. +They’ll think it most awfully sneakish of me to talk to you without +them; do come down, there’s a dear.” + +She knelt before the sand-bath and held out her arms. The Psammead must +have remembered how glad it had been to jump into those same little +arms only the day before, for it gave a little grudging grunt, and +jumped once more. + +Anthea wrapped it in her pinafore and carried it downstairs. It was +welcomed in a thrilling silence. + +At last Anthea said, “Now then!” + +“What place is this?” asked the Psammead, shooting its eyes out and +turning them slowly round. + +“It’s a sitting-room, of course,” said Robert. + +“Then I don’t like it,” said the Psammead. + +“Never mind,” said Anthea kindly; “we’ll take you anywhere you like if +you want us to. What was it you were going to say upstairs when I said +the others wouldn’t like it if I stayed talking to you without them?” + +It looked keenly at her, and she blushed. + +“Don’t be silly,” it said sharply. “Of course, it’s quite natural that +you should like your brothers and sisters to know exactly how good and +unselfish you were.” + +“I wish you wouldn’t,” said Jane. “Anthea was quite right. What was it +you were going to say when she stopped you?” + +“I’ll tell you,” said the Psammead, “since you’re so anxious to know. I +was going to say this. You’ve saved my life—and I’m not ungrateful—but +it doesn’t change your nature or mine. You’re still very ignorant, and +rather silly, and I am worth a thousand of you any day of the week.” + +“Of course you are!” Anthea was beginning but it interrupted her. + +“It’s very rude to interrupt,” it said; “what I mean is that I’m not +going to stand any nonsense, and if you think what you’ve done is to +give you the right to pet me or make me demean myself by playing with +you, you’ll find out that what you think doesn’t matter a single penny. +See? It’s what _I_ think that matters.” + +“I know,” said Cyril, “it always was, if you remember.” + +“Well,” said the Psammead, “then that’s settled. We’re to be treated as +we deserve. I with respect, and all of you with—but I don’t wish to be +offensive. Do you want me to tell you how I got into that horrible den +you bought me out of? Oh, I’m not ungrateful! I haven’t forgotten it +and I shan’t forget it.” + +“Do tell us,” said Anthea. “I know you’re awfully clever, but even with +all your cleverness, I don’t believe you can possibly know how—how +respectfully we do respect you. Don’t we?” + +The others all said yes—and fidgeted in their chairs. Robert spoke the +wishes of all when he said— + +“I do wish you’d go on.” So it sat up on the green-covered table and +went on. + +“When you’d gone away,” it said, “I went to sand for a bit, and slept. +I was tired out with all your silly wishes, and I felt as though I +hadn’t really been to sand for a year.” + +“To sand?” Jane repeated. + +“Where I sleep. You go to bed. I go to sand.” + +Jane yawned; the mention of bed made her feel sleepy. + +“All right,” said the Psammead, in offended tones. “I’m sure _I_ don’t +want to tell you a long tale. A man caught me, and I bit him. And he +put me in a bag with a dead hare and a dead rabbit. And he took me to +his house and put me out of the bag into a basket with holes that I +could see through. And I bit him again. And then he brought me to this +city, which I am told is called the Modern Babylon—though it’s not a +bit like the old Babylon—and he sold me to the man you bought me from, +and then I bit them both. Now, what’s your news?” + +“There’s not quite so much biting in our story,” said Cyril +regretfully; “in fact, there isn’t any. Father’s gone to Manchuria, and +Mother and The Lamb have gone to Madeira because Mother was ill, and +don’t I just wish that they were both safe home again.” + +Merely from habit, the Sand-fairy began to blow itself out, but it +stopped short suddenly. + +“I forgot,” it said; “I can’t give you any more wishes.” + +“No—but look here,” said Cyril, “couldn’t we call in old Nurse and get +her to say _she_ wishes they were safe home. I’m sure she does.” + +“No go,” said the Psammead. “It’s just the same as your wishing +yourself if you get some one else to wish for you. It won’t act.” + +“But it did yesterday—with the man in the shop,” said Robert. + +“Ah yes,” said the creature, “but you didn’t _ask_ him to wish, and you +didn’t know what would happen if he did. That can’t be done again. It’s +played out.” + +“Then you can’t help us at all,” said Jane; “oh—I did think you could +do something; I’ve been thinking about it ever since we saved your life +yesterday. I thought you’d be certain to be able to fetch back Father, +even if you couldn’t manage Mother.” + +And Jane began to cry. + +“Now _don’t_,” said the Psammead hastily; “you know how it always +upsets me if you cry. I can’t feel safe a moment. Look here; you must +have some new kind of charm.” + +“That’s easier said than done.” + +“Not a bit of it,” said the creature; “there’s one of the strongest +charms in the world not a stone’s throw from where you bought me +yesterday. The man that I bit so—the first one, I mean—went into a shop +to ask how much something cost—I think he said it was a concertina—and +while he was telling the man in the shop how much too much he wanted +for it, I saw the charm in a sort of tray, with a lot of other things. +If you can only buy _that_, you will be able to have your heart’s +desire.” + +The children looked at each other and then at the Psammead. Then Cyril +coughed awkwardly and took sudden courage to say what everyone was +thinking. + +“I do hope you won’t be waxy,” he said; “but it’s like this: when you +used to give us our wishes they almost always got us into some row or +other, and we used to think you wouldn’t have been pleased if they +hadn’t. Now, about this charm—we haven’t got over and above too much +tin, and if we blue it all on this charm and it turns out to be not up +to much—well—you see what I’m driving at, don’t you?” + +“I see that _you_ don’t see more than the length of your nose, and +_that’s_ not far,” said the Psammead crossly. “Look here, I _had_ to +give you the wishes, and of course they turned out badly, in a sort of +way, because you hadn’t the sense to wish for what was good for you. +But this charm’s quite different. I haven’t _got_ to do this for you, +it’s just my own generous kindness that makes me tell you about it. So +it’s bound to be all right. See?” + +“Don’t be cross,” said Anthea, “Please, _please_ don’t. You see, it’s +all we’ve got; we shan’t have any more pocket-money till Daddy comes +home—unless he sends us some in a letter. But we _do_ trust you. And I +say all of you,” she went on, “don’t you think it’s worth spending +_all_ the money, if there’s even the chanciest chance of getting Father +and Mother back safe _now?_ Just think of it! Oh, do let’s!” + +“_I_ don’t care what you do,” said the Psammead; “I’ll go back to sand +again till you’ve made up your minds.” + +“No, don’t!” said everybody; and Jane added, “We are quite mind +made-up—don’t you see we are? Let’s get our hats. Will you come with +us?” + +“Of course,” said the Psammead; “how else would you find the shop?” + +So everybody got its hat. The Psammead was put into a flat bass-bag +that had come from Farringdon Market with two pounds of filleted plaice +in it. Now it contained about three pounds and a quarter of solid +Psammead, and the children took it in turns to carry it. + +“It’s not half the weight of The Lamb,” Robert said, and the girls +sighed. + +The Psammead poked a wary eye out of the top of the basket every now +and then, and told the children which turnings to take. + +“How on earth do you know?” asked Robert. “I can’t think how you do +it.” + +And the Psammead said sharply, “No—I don’t suppose you can.” + +At last they came to _the_ shop. It had all sorts and kinds of things +in the window—concertinas, and silk handkerchiefs, china vases and +tea-cups, blue Japanese jars, pipes, swords, pistols, lace collars, +silver spoons tied up in half-dozens, and wedding-rings in a red +lacquered basin. There were officers’ epaulets and doctors’ lancets. +There were tea-caddies inlaid with red turtle-shell and brass +curly-wurlies, plates of different kinds of money, and stacks of +different kinds of plates. There was a beautiful picture of a little +girl washing a dog, which Jane liked very much. And in the middle of +the window there was a dirty silver tray full of mother-of-pearl card +counters, old seals, paste buckles, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of +little dingy odds and ends. + +The Psammead put its head quite out of the fish-basket to look in the +window, when Cyril said— + +“There’s a tray there with rubbish in it.” + +And then its long snail’s eyes saw something that made them stretch out +so much that they were as long and thin as new slate-pencils. Its fur +bristled thickly, and its voice was quite hoarse with excitement as it +whispered— + +“That’s it! That’s it! There, under that blue and yellow buckle, you +can see a bit sticking out. It’s red. Do you see?” + +“Is it that thing something like a horse-shoe?” asked Cyril. “And red, +like the common sealing-wax you do up parcels with?” + +“Yes, that’s it,” said the Psammead. “Now, you do just as you did +before. Ask the price of other things. That blue buckle would do. Then +the man will get the tray out of the window. I think you’d better be +the one,” it said to Anthea. “We’ll wait out here.” + +So the others flattened their noses against the shop window, and +presently a large, dirty, short-fingered hand with a very big diamond +ring came stretching through the green half-curtains at the back of the +shop window and took away the tray. + +They could not see what was happening in the interview between Anthea +and the Diamond Ring, and it seemed to them that she had had time—if +she had had money—to buy everything in the shop before the moment came +when she stood before them, her face wreathed in grins, as Cyril said +later, and in her hand the charm. + +It was something like this: + +[Illustration] + +and it was made of a red, smooth, softly shiny stone. + +“I’ve got it,” Anthea whispered, just opening her hand to give the +others a glimpse of it. “Do let’s get home. We can’t stand here like +stuck-pigs looking at it in the street.” + +So home they went. The parlour in Fitzroy Street was a very flat +background to magic happenings. Down in the country among the flowers +and green fields anything had seemed—and indeed had been—possible. But +it was hard to believe that anything really wonderful could happen so +near the Tottenham Court Road. But the Psammead was there—and it in +itself was wonderful. And it could talk—and it had shown them where a +charm could be bought that would make the owner of it perfectly happy. +So the four children hurried home, taking very long steps, with their +chins stuck out, and their mouths shut very tight indeed. They went so +fast that the Psammead was quite shaken about in its fish-bag, but it +did not say anything—perhaps for fear of attracting public notice. + +They got home at last, very hot indeed, and set the Psammead on the +green tablecloth. + +“Now then!” said Cyril. + +But the Psammead had to have a plate of sand fetched for it, for it was +quite faint. When it had refreshed itself a little it said— + +“Now then! Let me see the charm,” and Anthea laid it on the green +table-cover. The Psammead shot out his long eyes to look at it, then it +turned them reproachfully on Anthea and said— + +“But there’s only half of it here!” + +This was indeed a blow. + +“It was all there was,” said Anthea, with timid firmness. She knew it +was not her fault. + +“There should be another piece,” said the Psammead, “and a sort of pin +to fasten the two together.” + +“Isn’t half any good?”—“Won’t it work without the other bit?”—“It cost +seven-and-six.”—“Oh, bother, bother, bother!”—“Don’t be silly little +idiots!” said everyone and the Psammead altogether. + +Then there was a wretched silence. Cyril broke it— + +“What shall we do?” + +“Go back to the shop and see if they haven’t got the other half,” said +the Psammead. “I’ll go to sand till you come back. Cheer up! Even the +bit you’ve got is _some_ good, but it’ll be no end of a bother if you +can’t find the other.” + +So Cyril went to the shop. And the Psammead to sand. And the other +three went to dinner, which was now ready. And old Nurse was very cross +that Cyril was not ready too. + +The three were watching at the windows when Cyril returned, and even +before he was near enough for them to see his face there was something +about the slouch of his shoulders and set of his knickerbockers and the +way he dragged his boots along that showed but too plainly that his +errand had been in vain. + +“Well?” they all said, hoping against hope on the front-door step. + +“No go,” Cyril answered; “the man said the thing was perfect. He said +it was a Roman lady’s locket, and people shouldn’t buy curios if they +didn’t know anything about arky—something or other, and that he never +went back on a bargain, because it wasn’t business, and he expected his +customers to act the same. He was simply nasty—that’s what he was, and +I want my dinner.” + +It was plain that Cyril was not pleased. + +The unlikeliness of anything really interesting happening in that +parlour lay like a weight of lead on everyone’s spirits. Cyril had his +dinner, and just as he was swallowing the last mouthful of +apple-pudding there was a scratch at the door. Anthea opened it and in +walked the Psammead. + +“Well,” it said, when it had heard the news, “things might be worse. +Only you won’t be surprised if you have a few adventures before you get +the other half. You want to get it, of course.” + +“Rather,” was the general reply. “And we don’t mind adventures.” + +“No,” said the Psammead, “I seem to remember that about you. Well, sit +down and listen with all your ears. Eight, are there? Right—I am glad +you know arithmetic. Now pay attention, because I don’t intend to tell +you everything twice over.” + +As the children settled themselves on the floor—it was far more +comfortable than the chairs, as well as more polite to the Psammead, +who was stroking its whiskers on the hearth-rug—a sudden cold pain +caught at Anthea’s heart. Father—Mother—the darling Lamb—all far away. +Then a warm, comfortable feeling flowed through her. The Psammead was +here, and at least half a charm, and there were to be adventures. (If +you don’t know what a cold pain is, I am glad for your sakes, and I +hope you never may.) + +“Now,” said the Psammead cheerily, “you are not particularly nice, nor +particularly clever, and you’re not at all good-looking. Still, you’ve +saved my life—oh, when I think of that man and his pail of water!—so +I’ll tell you all I know. At least, of course I can’t do that, because +I know far too much. But I’ll tell you all I know about this red +thing.” + +“Do! Do! Do! Do!” said everyone. + +“Well, then,” said the Psammead. “This thing is half of an Amulet that +can do all sorts of things; it can make the corn grow, and the waters +flow, and the trees bear fruit, and the little new beautiful babies +come. (Not that babies _are_ beautiful, of course,” it broke off to +say, “but their mothers think they are—and as long as you think a +thing’s true it _is_ true as far as you’re concerned.)” + +Robert yawned. + +The Psammead went on. + +“The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people +unhappy—jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness, +selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet +was made. Don’t you think it would be nice to have it?” + +“Very,” said the children, quite without enthusiasm. + +“And it can give you strength and courage.” + +“That’s better,” said Cyril. + +“And virtue.” + +“I suppose it’s nice to have that,” said Jane, but not with much +interest. + +“And it can give you your heart’s desire.” + +“Now you’re talking,” said Robert. + +“Of course I am,” retorted the Psammead tartly, “so there’s no need for +you to.” + +“Heart’s desire is good enough for me,” said Cyril. + +“Yes, but,” Anthea ventured, “all that’s what the _whole_ charm can do. +There’s something that the half we’ve got can win off its own bat—isn’t +there?” She appealed to the Psammead. It nodded. + +“Yes,” it said; “the half has the power to take you anywhere you like +to look for the other half.” + +This seemed a brilliant prospect till Robert asked— + +“Does it know where to look?” + +The Psammead shook its head and answered, “I don’t think it’s likely.” + +“Do you?” + +“No.” + +“Then,” said Robert, “we might as well look for a needle in a bottle of +hay. Yes—it _is_ bottle, and not bundle, Father said so.” + +“Not at all,” said the Psammead briskly-, “you think you know +everything, but you are quite mistaken. The first thing is to get the +thing to talk.” + +“Can it?” Jane questioned. Jane’s question did not mean that she +thought it couldn’t, for in spite of the parlour furniture the feeling +of magic was growing deeper and thicker, and seemed to fill the room +like a dream of a scented fog. + +“Of course it can. I suppose you can read.” + +“Oh yes!” Everyone was rather hurt at the question. + +“Well, then—all you’ve got to do is to read the name that’s written on +the part of the charm that you’ve got. And as soon as you say the name +out loud the thing will have power to do—well, several things.” + +There was a silence. The red charm was passed from hand to hand. + +“There’s no name on it,” said Cyril at last. + +“Nonsense,” said the Psammead; “what’s that?” + +“Oh, _that!_” said Cyril, “it’s not reading. It looks like pictures of +chickens and snakes and things.” + +This was what was on the charm: + +[Illustration] + +“I’ve no patience with you,” said the Psammead; “if you can’t read you +must find some one who can. A priest now?” + +“We don’t know any priests,” said Anthea; “we know a clergyman—he’s +called a priest in the prayer-book, you know—but he only knows Greek +and Latin and Hebrew, and this isn’t any of those—I know.” + +The Psammead stamped a furry foot angrily. + +“I wish I’d never seen you,” it said; “you aren’t any more good than so +many stone images. Not so much, if I’m to tell the truth. Is there no +wise man in your Babylon who can pronounce the names of the Great +Ones?” + +“There’s a poor learned gentleman upstairs,” said Anthea, “we might try +him. He has a lot of stone images in his room, and iron-looking ones +too—we peeped in once when he was out. Old Nurse says he doesn’t eat +enough to keep a canary alive. He spends it all on stones and things.” + +“Try him,” said the Psammead, “only be careful. If he knows a greater +name than this and uses it against you, your charm will be of no use. +Bind him first with the chains of honour and upright dealing. And then +ask his aid—oh, yes, you’d better all go; you can put me to sand as you +go upstairs. I must have a few minutes’ peace and quietness.” + +So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed their +hair—this was Anthea’s idea—and went up to knock at the door of the +“poor learned gentleman”, and to “bind him with the chains of honour +and upright dealing”. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +THE PAST + + +The learned gentleman had let his dinner get quite cold. It was mutton +chop, and as it lay on the plate it looked like a brown island in the +middle of a frozen pond, because the grease of the gravy had become +cold, and consequently white. It looked very nasty, and it was the +first thing the children saw when, after knocking three times and +receiving no reply, one of them ventured to turn the handle and softly +to open the door. The chop was on the end of a long table that ran down +one side of the room. The table had images on it and queer-shaped +stones, and books. And there were glass cases fixed against the wall +behind, with little strange things in them. The cases were rather like +the ones you see in jewellers’ shops. + +The “poor learned gentleman” was sitting at a table in the window, +looking at something very small which he held in a pair of fine +pincers. He had a round spy-glass sort of thing in one eye—which +reminded the children of watchmakers, and also of the long snail’s eyes +of the Psammead. + +The gentleman was very long and thin, and his long, thin boots stuck +out under the other side of his table. He did not hear the door open, +and the children stood hesitating. At last Robert gave the door a push, +and they all started back, for in the middle of the wall that the door +had hidden was a mummy-case—very, very, very big—painted in red and +yellow and green and black, and the face of it seemed to look at them +quite angrily. + +You know what a mummy-case is like, of course? If you don’t you had +better go to the British Museum at once and find out. Anyway, it is not +at all the sort of thing that you expect to meet in a top-floor front +in Bloomsbury, looking as though it would like to know what business +_you_ had there. + +So everyone said, “Oh!” rather loud, and their boots clattered as they +stumbled back. + +The learned gentleman took the glass out of his eye and said—“I beg +your pardon,” in a very soft, quiet pleasant voice—the voice of a +gentleman who has been to Oxford. + +“It’s us that beg yours,” said Cyril politely. “We are sorry to disturb +you.” + +“Come in,” said the gentleman, rising—with the most distinguished +courtesy, Anthea told herself. “I am delighted to see you. Won’t you +sit down? No, not there; allow me to move that papyrus.” + +He cleared a chair, and stood smiling and looking kindly through his +large, round spectacles. + +“He treats us like grown-ups,” whispered Robert, “and he doesn’t seem +to know how many of us there are.” + +“Hush,” said Anthea, “it isn’t manners to whisper. You say, Cyril—go +ahead.” + +“We’re very sorry to disturb you,” said Cyril politely, “but we did +knock three times, and you didn’t say ‘Come in’, or ‘Run away now’, or +that you couldn’t be bothered just now, or to come when you weren’t so +busy, or any of the things people do say when you knock at doors, so we +opened it. We knew you were in because we heard you sneeze while we +were waiting.” + +“Not at all,” said the gentleman; “do sit down.” + +“He has found out there are four of us,” said Robert, as the gentleman +cleared three more chairs. He put the things off them carefully on the +floor. The first chair had things like bricks that tiny, tiny birds’ +feet have walked over when the bricks were soft, only the marks were in +regular lines. The second chair had round things on it like very large, +fat, long, pale beads. And the last chair had a pile of dusty papers on +it. + +The children sat down. + +“We know you are very, very learned,” said Cyril, “and we have got a +charm, and we want you to read the name on it, because it isn’t in +Latin or Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the languages _we_ know—” + +“A thorough knowledge of even those languages is a very fair foundation +on which to build an education,” said the gentleman politely. + +“Oh!” said Cyril blushing, “but we only know them to look at, except +Latin—and I’m only in Caesar with that.” + +The gentleman took off his spectacles and laughed. His laugh sounded +rusty, Cyril thought, as though it wasn’t often used. + +“Of course!” he said. “I’m sure I beg your pardon. I think I must have +been in a dream. You are the children who live downstairs, are you not? +Yes. I have seen you as I have passed in and out. And you have found +something that you think to be an antiquity, and you’ve brought it to +show me? That was very kind. I should like to inspect it.” + +“I’m afraid we didn’t think about your liking to inspect it,” said the +truthful Anthea. “It was just for _us_—because we wanted to know the +name on it—” + +“Oh, yes—and, I say,” Robert interjected, “you won’t think it rude of +us if we ask you first, before we show it, to be bound in the +what-do-you-call-it of—” + +“In the bonds of honour and upright dealing,” said Anthea. + +“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you,” said the gentleman, with gentle +nervousness. + +“Well, it’s this way,” said Cyril. “We’ve got part of a charm. And the +Sammy—I mean, something told us it would work, though it’s only half a +one; but it won’t work unless we can say the name that’s on it. But, of +course, if you’ve got another name that can lick ours, our charm will +be no go; so we want you to give us your word of honour as a +gentleman—though I’m sure, now I’ve seen you, that it’s not necessary; +but still I’ve promised to ask you, so we must. Will you please give us +your honourable word not to say any name stronger than the name on our +charm?” + +The gentleman had put on his spectacles again and was looking at Cyril +through them. He now said: “Bless me!” more than once, adding, “Who +told you all this?” + +“I can’t tell you,” said Cyril. “I’m very sorry, but I can’t.” + +Some faint memory of a far-off childhood must have come to the learned +gentleman just then, for he smiled. “I see,” he said. “It is some sort +of game that you are engaged in? Of course! Yes! Well, I will certainly +promise. Yet I wonder how you heard of the names of power?” + +“We can’t tell you that either,” said Cyril; and Anthea said, “Here is +our charm,” and held it out. + +With politeness, but without interest, the gentleman took it. But after +the first glance all his body suddenly stiffened, as a pointer’s does +when he sees a partridge. + +“Excuse me,” he said in quite a changed voice, and carried the charm to +the window. + +He looked at it; he turned it over. He fixed his spy-glass in his eye +and looked again. No one said anything. Only Robert made a shuffling +noise with his feet till Anthea nudged him to shut up. + +At last the learned gentleman drew a long breath. + +“Where did you find this?” he asked. + +“We didn’t find it. We bought it at a shop. Jacob Absalom the name +is—not far from Charing Cross,” said Cyril. + +“We gave seven-and-sixpence for it,” added Jane. + +“It is not for sale, I suppose? You do not wish to part with it? I +ought to tell you that it is extremely valuable—extraordinarily +valuable, I may say.” + +“Yes,” said Cyril, “we know that, so of course we want to keep it.” + +“Keep it carefully, then,” said the gentleman impressively; “and if +ever you should wish to part with it, may I ask you to give me the +refusal of it?” + +“The refusal?” + +“I mean, do not sell it to anyone else until you have given me the +opportunity of buying it.” + +“All right,” said Cyril, “we won’t. But we don’t want to sell it. We +want to make it do things.” + +“I suppose you can play at that as well as at anything else,” said the +gentleman; “but I’m afraid the days of magic are over.” + +“They aren’t _really_,” said Anthea earnestly. “You’d see they aren’t +if I could tell you about our last summer holidays. Only I mustn’t. +Thank you very much. And can you read the name?” + +“Yes, I can read it.” + +“Will you tell it us?” + +“The name,” said the gentleman, “is Ur Hekau Setcheh.” + +“Ur Hekau Setcheh,” repeated Cyril. “Thanks awfully. I do hope we +haven’t taken up too much of your time.” + +“Not at all,” said the gentleman. “And do let me entreat you to be +very, very careful of that most valuable specimen.” + +They said “Thank you” in all the different polite ways they could think +of, and filed out of the door and down the stairs. Anthea was last. +Half-way down to the first landing she turned and ran up again. + +The door was still open, and the learned gentleman and the mummy-case +were standing opposite to each other, and both looked as though they +had stood like that for years. + +The gentleman started when Anthea put her hand on his arm. + +“I hope you won’t be cross and say it’s not my business,” she said, +“but do look at your chop! Don’t you think you ought to eat it? Father +forgets his dinner sometimes when he’s writing, and Mother always says +I ought to remind him if she’s not at home to do it herself, because +it’s so bad to miss your regular meals. So I thought perhaps you +wouldn’t mind my reminding you, because you don’t seem to have anyone +else to do it.” + +She glanced at the mummy-case; _it_ certainly did not look as though it +would ever think of reminding people of their meals. + +The learned gentleman looked at her for a moment before he said— + +“Thank you, my dear. It was a kindly thought. No, I haven’t anyone to +remind me about things like that.” + +He sighed, and looked at the chop. + +“It looks very nasty,” said Anthea. + +“Yes,” he said, “it does. I’ll eat it immediately, before I forget.” + +As he ate it he sighed more than once. Perhaps because the chop was +nasty, perhaps because he longed for the charm which the children did +not want to sell, perhaps because it was so long since anyone cared +whether he ate his chops or forgot them. + +Anthea caught the others at the stair-foot. They woke the Psammead, and +it taught them exactly how to use the word of power, and to make the +charm speak. I am not going to tell you how this is done, because you +might try to do it. And for you any such trying would be almost sure to +end in disappointment. Because in the first place it is a thousand +million to one against your ever getting hold of the right sort of +charm, and if you did, there would be hardly any chance at all of your +finding a learned gentleman clever enough and kind enough to read the +word for you. + +The children and the Psammead crouched in a circle on the floor—in the +girls’ bedroom, because in the parlour they might have been interrupted +by old Nurse’s coming in to lay the cloth for tea—and the charm was put +in the middle of the circle. + +The sun shone splendidly outside, and the room was very light. Through +the open window came the hum and rattle of London, and in the street +below they could hear the voice of the milkman. + +When all was ready, the Psammead signed to Anthea to say the word. And +she said it. + +Instantly the whole light of all the world seemed to go out. The room +was dark. The world outside was dark—darker than the darkest night that +ever was. And all the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence +deeper than any silence you have ever even dreamed of imagining. It was +like being suddenly deaf and blind, only darker and quieter even than +that. + +But before the children had got over the sudden shock of it enough to +be frightened, a faint, beautiful light began to show in the middle of +the circle, and at the same moment a faint, beautiful voice began to +speak. The light was too small for one to see anything by, and the +voice was too small for you to hear what it said. You could just see +the light and just hear the voice. + +But the light grew stronger. It was greeny, like glow-worms’ lamps, and +it grew and grew till it was as though thousands and thousands of +glow-worms were signalling to their winged sweethearts from the middle +of the circle. And the voice grew, not so much in loudness as in +sweetness (though it grew louder, too), till it was so sweet that you +wanted to cry with pleasure just at the sound of it. It was like +nightingales, and the sea, and the fiddle, and the voice of your mother +when you have been a long time away, and she meets you at the door when +you get home. + +And the voice said— + +“Speak. What is it that you would hear?” + +I cannot tell you what language the voice used. I only know that +everyone present understood it perfectly. If you come to think of it, +there must be some language that everyone could understand, if we only +knew what it was. Nor can I tell you how the charm spoke, nor whether +it was the charm that spoke, or some presence in the charm. The +children could not have told you either. Indeed, they could not look at +the charm while it was speaking, because the light was too bright. They +looked instead at the green radiance on the faded Kidderminster carpet +at the edge of the circle. They all felt very quiet, and not inclined +to ask questions or fidget with their feet. For this was not like the +things that had happened in the country when the Psammead had given +them their wishes. That had been funny somehow, and this was not. It +was something like _Arabian Nights_ magic, and something like being in +church. No one cared to speak. + +It was Cyril who said at last— + +“Please we want to know where the other half of the charm is.” + +“The part of the Amulet which is lost,” said the beautiful voice, “was +broken and ground into the dust of the shrine that held it. It and the +pin that joined the two halves are themselves dust, and the dust is +scattered over many lands and sunk in many seas.” + +“Oh, I say!” murmured Robert, and a blank silence fell. + +“Then it’s all up?” said Cyril at last; “it’s no use our looking for a +thing that’s smashed into dust, and the dust scattered all over the +place.” + +“If you would find it,” said the voice, “You must seek it where it +still is, perfect as ever.” + +“I don’t understand,” said Cyril. + +“In the Past you may find it,” said the voice. + +“I wish we _may_ find it,” said Cyril. + +The Psammead whispered crossly, “Don’t you understand? The thing +existed in the Past. If you were in the Past, too, you could find it. +It’s very difficult to make you understand things. Time and space are +only forms of thought.” + +“I see,” said Cyril. + +“No, you don’t,” said the Psammead, “and it doesn’t matter if you +don’t, either. What I mean is that if you were only made the right way, +you could see everything happening in the same place at the same time. +Now do you see?” + +“I’m afraid _I_ don’t,” said Anthea; “I’m sorry I’m so stupid.” + +“Well, at any rate, you see this. That lost half of the Amulet is in +the Past. Therefore it’s in the Past we must look for it. I mustn’t +speak to the charm myself. Ask it things! Find out!” + +“Where can we find the other part of you?” asked Cyril obediently. + +“In the Past,” said the voice. + +“What part of the Past?” + +“I may not tell you. If you will choose a time, I will take you to the +place that then held it. You yourselves must find it.” + +“When did you see it last?” asked Anthea—“I mean, when was it taken +away from you?” + +The beautiful voice answered— + +“That was thousands of years ago. The Amulet was perfect then, and lay +in a shrine, the last of many shrines, and I worked wonders. Then came +strange men with strange weapons and destroyed my shrine, and the +Amulet they bore away with many captives. But of these, one, my priest, +knew the word of power, and spoke it for me, so that the Amulet became +invisible, and thus returned to my shrine, but the shrine was broken +down, and ere any magic could rebuild it one spoke a word before which +my power bowed down and was still. And the Amulet lay there, still +perfect, but enslaved. Then one coming with stones to rebuild the +shrine, dropped a hewn stone on the Amulet as it lay, and one half was +sundered from the other. I had no power to seek for that which was +lost. And there being none to speak the word of power, I could not +rejoin it. So the Amulet lay in the dust of the desert many thousand +years, and at last came a small man, a conqueror with an army, and +after him a crowd of men who sought to seem wise, and one of these +found half the Amulet and brought it to this land. But none could read +the name. So I lay still. And this man dying and his son after him, the +Amulet was sold by those who came after to a merchant, and from him you +bought it, and it is here, and now, the name of power having been +spoken, I also am here.” + +This is what the voice said. I think it must have meant Napoleon by the +small man, the conqueror. Because I know I have been told that he took +an army to Egypt, and that afterwards a lot of wise people went +grubbing in the sand, and fished up all sorts of wonderful things, +older than you would think possible. And of these I believe this charm +to have been one, and the most wonderful one of all. + +Everyone listened: and everyone tried to think. It is not easy to do +this clearly when you have been listening to the kind of talk I have +told you about. + +At last Robert said— + +“Can you take us into the Past—to the shrine where you and the other +thing were together. If you could take us there, we might find the +other part still there after all these thousands of years.” + +“Still there? silly!” said Cyril. “Don’t you see, if we go back into +the Past it won’t be thousands of years ago. It will be _now_ for +us—won’t it?” He appealed to the Psammead, who said— + +“You’re not so far off the idea as you usually are!” + +“Well,” said Anthea, “will you take us back to when there was a shrine +and you were safe in it—all of you?” + +“Yes,” said the voice. “You must hold me up, and speak the word of +power, and one by one, beginning with the first-born, you shall pass +through me into the Past. But let the last that passes be the one that +holds me, and let him not lose his hold, lest you lose me, and so +remain in the Past for ever.” + +“That’s a nasty idea,” said Robert. + +“When you desire to return,” the beautiful voice went on, “hold me up +towards the East, and speak the word. Then, passing through me, you +shall return to this time and it shall be the present to you.” + +“But how—” + +A bell rang loudly. + +“Oh crikey!” exclaimed Robert, “that’s tea! Will you please make it +proper daylight again so that we can go down. And thank you so much for +all your kindness.” + +“We’ve enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you!” added Anthea +politely. + +The beautiful light faded slowly. The great darkness and silence came +and these suddenly changed to the dazzlement of day and the great soft, +rustling sound of London, that is like some vast beast turning over in +its sleep. + +The children rubbed their eyes, the Psammead ran quickly to its sandy +bath, and the others went down to tea. And until the cups were actually +filled tea seemed less real than the beautiful voice and the greeny +light. + +After tea Anthea persuaded the others to allow her to hang the charm +round her neck with a piece of string. + +“It would be so awful if it got lost,” she said: “it might get lost +anywhere, you know, and it would be rather beastly for us to have to +stay in the Past for ever and ever, wouldn’t it?” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO + + +Next morning Anthea got old Nurse to allow her to take up the “poor +learned gentleman’s” breakfast. He did not recognize her at first, but +when he did he was vaguely pleased to see her. + +“You see I’m wearing the charm round my neck,” she said; “I’m taking +care of it—like you told us to.” + +“That’s right,” said he; “did you have a good game last night?” + +“You will eat your breakfast before it’s cold, won’t you?” said Anthea. +“Yes, we had a splendid time. The charm made it all dark, and then +greeny light, and then it spoke. Oh! I wish you could have heard it—it +was such a darling voice—and it told us the other half of it was lost +in the Past, so of course we shall have to look for it there!” + +The learned gentleman rubbed his hair with both hands and looked +anxiously at Anthea. + +“I suppose it’s natural—youthful imagination and so forth,” he said. +“Yet someone must have... Who told you that some part of the charm was +missing?” + +“I can’t tell you,” she said. “I know it seems most awfully rude, +especially after being so kind about telling us the name of power, and +all that, but really, I’m not allowed to tell anybody anything about +the—the—the person who told me. You won’t forget your breakfast, will +you?” + +The learned gentleman smiled feebly and then frowned—not a cross-frown, +but a puzzle-frown. + +“Thank you,” he said, “I shall always be pleased if you’ll look in—any +time you’re passing you know—at least...” + +“I will,” she said; “goodbye. I’ll always tell you anything I _may_ +tell.” + +He had not had many adventures with children in them, and he wondered +whether all children were like these. He spent quite five minutes in +wondering before he settled down to the fifty-second chapter of his +great book on _The Secret Rites of the Priests of Amen Rā_. + +It is no use to pretend that the children did not feel a good deal of +agitation at the thought of going through the charm into the Past. That +idea, that perhaps they might stay in the Past and never get back +again, was anything but pleasing. Yet no one would have dared to +suggest that the charm should not be used; and though each was in its +heart very frightened indeed, they would all have joined in jeering at +the cowardice of any one of them who should have uttered the timid but +natural suggestion, “Don’t let’s!” + +It seemed necessary to make arrangements for being out all day, for +there was no reason to suppose that the sound of the dinner-bell would +be able to reach back into the Past, and it seemed unwise to excite old +Nurse’s curiosity when nothing they could say—not even the truth—could +in any way satisfy it. They were all very proud to think how well they +had understood what the charm and the Psammead had said about Time and +Space and things like that, and they were perfectly certain that it +would be quite impossible to make old Nurse understand a single word of +it. So they merely asked her to let them take their dinner out into +Regent’s Park—and this, with the implied cold mutton and tomatoes, was +readily granted. + +“You can get yourselves some buns or sponge-cakes, or whatever you +fancy-like,” said old Nurse, giving Cyril a shilling. “Don’t go getting +jam-tarts, now—so messy at the best of times, and without forks and +plates ruination to your clothes, besides your not being able to wash +your hands and faces afterwards.” + +So Cyril took the shilling, and they all started off. They went round +by the Tottenham Court Road to buy a piece of waterproof sheeting to +put over the Psammead in case it should be raining in the Past when +they got there. For it is almost certain death to a Psammead to get +wet. + +The sun was shining very brightly, and even London looked pretty. Women +were selling roses from big baskets-full, and Anthea bought four roses, +one each, for herself and the others. They were red roses and smelt of +summer—the kind of roses you always want so desperately at about +Christmas-time when you can only get mistletoe, which is pale right +through to its very scent, and holly which pricks your nose if you try +to smell it. So now everyone had a rose in its buttonhole, and soon +everyone was sitting on the grass in Regent’s Park under trees whose +leaves would have been clean, clear green in the country, but here were +dusty and yellowish, and brown at the edges. + +“We’ve got to go on with it,” said Anthea, “and as the eldest has to go +first, you’ll have to be last, Jane. You quite understand about holding +on to the charm as you go through, don’t you, Pussy?” + +“I wish I hadn’t got to be last,” said Jane. + +“You shall carry the Psammead if you like,” said Anthea. “That is,” she +added, remembering the beast’s queer temper, “if it’ll let you.” + +The Psammead, however, was unexpectedly amiable. + +“_I_ don’t mind,” it said, “who carries me, so long as it doesn’t drop +me. I can’t bear being dropped.” + +Jane with trembling hands took the Psammead and its fish-basket under +one arm. The charm’s long string was hung round her neck. Then they all +stood up. Jane held out the charm at arm’s length, and Cyril solemnly +pronounced the word of power. + +As he spoke it the charm grew tall and broad, and he saw that Jane was +just holding on to the edge of a great red arch of very curious shape. +The opening of the arch was small, but Cyril saw that he could go +through it. All round and beyond the arch were the faded trees and +trampled grass of Regent’s Park, where the little ragged children were +playing Ring-o’-Roses. But through the opening of it shone a blaze of +blue and yellow and red. Cyril drew a long breath and stiffened his +legs so that the others should not see that his knees were trembling +and almost knocking together. “Here goes!” he said, and, stepping up +through the arch, disappeared. Then followed Anthea. Robert, coming +next, held fast, at Anthea’s suggestion, to the sleeve of Jane, who was +thus dragged safely through the arch. And as soon as they were on the +other side of the arch there was no more arch at all and no more +Regent’s Park either, only the charm in Jane’s hand, and it was its +proper size again. They were now in a light so bright that they winked +and blinked and rubbed their eyes. During this dazzling interval Anthea +felt for the charm and pushed it inside Jane’s frock, so that it might +be quite safe. When their eyes got used to the new wonderful light the +children looked around them. The sky was very, very blue, and it +sparkled and glittered and dazzled like the sea at home when the sun +shines on it. + +They were standing on a little clearing in a thick, low forest; there +were trees and shrubs and a close, thorny, tangly undergrowth. In front +of them stretched a bank of strange black mud, then came the +browny-yellowy shining ribbon of a river. Then more dry, caked mud and +more greeny-browny jungle. The only things that told that human people +had been there were the clearing, a path that led to it, and an odd +arrangement of cut reeds in the river. + +They looked at each other. + +“Well!” said Robert, “this _is_ a change of air!” + +It was. The air was hotter than they could have imagined, even in +London in August. + +“I wish I knew where we were,” said Cyril. + +“Here’s a river, now—I wonder whether it’s the Amazon or the Tiber, or +what.” + +“It’s the Nile,” said the Psammead, looking out of the fish-bag. + +“Then this is Egypt,” said Robert, who had once taken a geography +prize. + +“I don’t see any crocodiles,” Cyril objected. His prize had been for +natural history. + +The Psammead reached out a hairy arm from its basket and pointed to a +heap of mud at the edge of the water. + +“What do you call that?” it said; and as it spoke the heap of mud slid +into the river just as a slab of damp mixed mortar will slip from a +bricklayer’s trowel. + +“Oh!” said everybody. + +There was a crashing among the reeds on the other side of the water. + +“And there’s a river-horse!” said the Psammead, as a great beast like +an enormous slaty-blue slug showed itself against the black bank on the +far side of the stream. + +“It’s a hippopotamus,” said Cyril; “it seems much more real somehow +than the one at the Zoo, doesn’t it?” + +“I’m glad it’s being real on the other side of the river,” said Jane. + +And now there was a crackling of reeds and twigs behind them. This was +horrible. Of course it might be another hippopotamus, or a crocodile, +or a lion—or, in fact, almost anything. + +“Keep your hand on the charm, Jane,” said Robert hastily. “We ought to +have a means of escape handy. I’m dead certain this is the sort of +place where simply anything _might_ happen to us.” + +“I believe a hippopotamus is going to happen to us,” said Jane—“a very, +very big one.” + +They had all turned to face the danger. + +“Don’t be silly little duffers,” said the Psammead in its friendly, +informal way; “it’s not a river-horse. It’s a human.” + +It was. It was a girl—of about Anthea’s age. Her hair was short and +fair, and though her skin was tanned by the sun, you could see that it +would have been fair too if it had had a chance. She had every chance +of being tanned, for she had no clothes to speak of, and the four +English children, carefully dressed in frocks, hats, shoes, stockings, +coats, collars, and all the rest of it, envied her more than any words +of theirs or of mine could possibly say. There was no doubt that here +was the right costume for that climate. + +She carried a pot on her head, of red and black earthenware. She did +not see the children, who shrank back against the edge of the jungle, +and she went forward to the brink of the river to fill her pitcher. As +she went she made a strange sort of droning, humming, melancholy noise +all on two notes. Anthea could not help thinking that perhaps the girl +thought this noise was singing. + +The girl filled the pitcher and set it down by the river bank. Then she +waded into the water and stooped over the circle of cut reeds. She +pulled half a dozen fine fish out of the water within the reeds, +killing each as she took it out, and threading it on a long osier that +she carried. Then she knotted the osier, hung it on her arm, picked up +the pitcher, and turned to come back. And as she turned she saw the +four children. The white dresses of Jane and Anthea stood out like snow +against the dark forest background. She screamed and the pitcher fell, +and the water was spilled out over the hard mud surface and over the +fish, which had fallen too. Then the water slowly trickled away into +the deep cracks. + +“Don’t be frightened,” Anthea cried, “we won’t hurt you.” + +“Who are you?” said the girl. + +Now, once for all, I am not going to be bothered to tell you how it was +that the girl could understand Anthea and Anthea could understand the +girl. _You_, at any rate, would not understand _me_, if I tried to +explain it, any more than you can understand about time and space being +only forms of thought. You may think what you like. Perhaps the +children had found out the universal language which everyone can +understand, and which wise men so far have not found. You will have +noticed long ago that they were singularly lucky children, and they may +have had this piece of luck as well as others. Or it may have been +that... but why pursue the question further? The fact remains that in +all their adventures the muddle-headed inventions which we call foreign +languages never bothered them in the least. They could always +understand and be understood. If you can explain this, please do. I +daresay I could understand your explanation, though you could never +understand mine. + +So when the girl said, “Who are you?” everyone understood at once, and +Anthea replied— + +“We are children—just like you. Don’t be frightened. Won’t you show us +where you live?” + +Jane put her face right into the Psammead’s basket, and burrowed her +mouth into its fur to whisper— + +“Is it safe? Won’t they eat us? Are they cannibals?” + +The Psammead shrugged its fur. + +“Don’t make your voice buzz like that, it tickles my ears,” it said +rather crossly. “You can always get back to Regent’s Park in time if +you keep fast hold of the charm,” it said. + +The strange girl was trembling with fright. + +Anthea had a bangle on her arm. It was a sevenpenny-halfpenny trumpery +thing that pretended to be silver; it had a glass heart of turquoise +blue hanging from it, and it was the gift of the maid-of-all-work at +the Fitzroy Street house. + +“Here,” said Anthea, “this is for you. That is to show we will not hurt +you. And if you take it I shall know that you won’t hurt us.” + +The girl held out her hand. Anthea slid the bangle over it, and the +girl’s face lighted up with the joy of possession. + +“Come,” she said, looking lovingly at the bangle; “it is peace between +your house and mine.” + +She picked up her fish and pitcher and led the way up the narrow path +by which she had come and the others followed. + +“This is something like!” said Cyril, trying to be brave. + +“Yes!” said Robert, also assuming a boldness he was far from feeling, +“this really and truly _is_ an adventure! Its being in the Past makes +it quite different from the Phœnix and Carpet happenings.” + +The belt of thick-growing acacia trees and shrubs—mostly prickly and +unpleasant-looking—seemed about half a mile across. The path was narrow +and the wood dark. At last, ahead, daylight shone through the boughs +and leaves. + +The whole party suddenly came out of the wood’s shadow into the glare +of the sunlight that shone on a great stretch of yellow sand, dotted +with heaps of grey rocks where spiky cactus plants showed gaudy crimson +and pink flowers among their shabby, sand-peppered leaves. Away to the +right was something that looked like a grey-brown hedge, and from +beyond it blue smoke went up to the bluer sky. And over all the sun +shone till you could hardly bear your clothes. + +“That is where I live,” said the girl pointing. + +“I won’t go,” whispered Jane into the basket, “unless you say it’s all +right.” + +The Psammead ought to have been touched by this proof of confidence. +Perhaps, however, it looked upon it as a proof of doubt, for it merely +snarled— + +“If you don’t go now I’ll never help you again.” + +“_Oh_,” whispered Anthea, “dear Jane, don’t! Think of Father and Mother +and all of us getting our heart’s desire. And we can go back any +minute. Come on!” + +“Besides,” said Cyril, in a low voice, “the Psammead must know there’s +no danger or it wouldn’t go. It’s not so over and above brave itself. +Come on!” + +This Jane at last consented to do. + +As they got nearer to the browny fence they saw that it was a great +hedge about eight feet high, made of piled-up thorn bushes. + +“What’s that for?” asked Cyril. + +“To keep out foes and wild beasts,” said the girl. + +“I should think it ought to, too,” said he. “Why, some of the thorns +are as long as my foot.” + +There was an opening in the hedge, and they followed the girl through +it. A little way further on was another hedge, not so high, also of dry +thorn bushes, very prickly and spiteful-looking, and within this was a +sort of village of huts. + +There were no gardens and no roads. Just huts built of wood and twigs +and clay, and roofed with great palm-leaves, dumped down anywhere. The +doors of these houses were very low, like the doors of dog-kennels. The +ground between them was not paths or streets, but just yellow sand +trampled very hard and smooth. + +In the middle of the village there was a hedge that enclosed what +seemed to be a piece of ground about as big as their own garden in +Camden Town. + +No sooner were the children well within the inner thorn hedge than +dozens of men and women and children came crowding round from behind +and inside the huts. + +The girl stood protectingly in front of the four children, and said— + +“They are wonder-children from beyond the desert. They bring marvellous +gifts, and I have said that it is peace between us and them.” + +She held out her arm with the Lowther Arcade bangle on it. + +The children from London, where nothing now surprises anyone, had never +before seen so many people look so astonished. + +They crowded round the children, touching their clothes, their shoes, +the buttons on the boys’ jackets, and the coral of the girls’ +necklaces. + +“Do say something,” whispered Anthea. + +“We come,” said Cyril, with some dim remembrance of a dreadful day when +he had had to wait in an outer office while his father interviewed a +solicitor, and there had been nothing to read but the _Daily +Telegraph_—“we come from the world where the sun never sets. And peace +with honour is what we want. We are the great Anglo-Saxon or conquering +race. Not that we want to conquer _you_,” he added hastily. “We only +want to look at your houses and your—well, at all you’ve got here, and +then we shall return to our own place, and tell of all that we have +seen so that your name may be famed.” + +Cyril’s speech didn’t keep the crowd from pressing round and looking as +eagerly as ever at the clothing of the children. Anthea had an idea +that these people had never seen woven stuff before, and she saw how +wonderful and strange it must seem to people who had never had any +clothes but the skins of beasts. The sewing, too, of modern clothes +seemed to astonish them very much. They must have been able to sew +themselves, by the way, for men who seemed to be the chiefs wore +knickerbockers of goat-skin or deer-skin, fastened round the waist with +twisted strips of hide. And the women wore long skimpy skirts of +animals’ skins. The people were not very tall, their hair was fair, and +men and women both had it short. Their eyes were blue, and that seemed +odd in Egypt. Most of them were tattooed like sailors, only more +roughly. + +“What is this? What is this?” they kept asking touching the children’s +clothes curiously. + +Anthea hastily took off Jane’s frilly lace collar and handed it to the +woman who seemed most friendly. + +“Take this,” she said, “and look at it. And leave us alone. We want to +talk among ourselves.” + +She spoke in the tone of authority which she had always found +successful when she had not time to coax her baby brother to do as he +was told. The tone was just as successful now. The children were left +together and the crowd retreated. It paused a dozen yards away to look +at the lace collar and to go on talking as hard as it could. + +The children will never know what those people said, though they knew +well enough that they, the four strangers, were the subject of the +talk. They tried to comfort themselves by remembering the girl’s +promise of friendliness, but of course the thought of the charm was +more comfortable than anything else. They sat down on the sand in the +shadow of the hedged-round place in the middle of the village, and now +for the first time they were able to look about them and to see +something more than a crowd of eager, curious faces. + +They here noticed that the women wore necklaces made of beads of +different coloured stone, and from these hung pendants of odd, strange +shapes, and some of them had bracelets of ivory and flint. + +“I say,” said Robert, “what a lot we could teach them if we stayed +here!” + +“I expect they could teach us something too,” said Cyril. “Did you +notice that flint bracelet the woman had that Anthea gave the collar +to? That must have taken some making. Look here, they’ll get suspicious +if we talk among ourselves, and I do want to know about how they do +things. Let’s get the girl to show us round, and we can be thinking +about how to get the Amulet at the same time. Only mind, we must keep +together.” + +Anthea beckoned to the girl, who was standing a little way off looking +wistfully at them, and she came gladly. + +“Tell us how you make the bracelets, the stone ones,” said Cyril. + +“With other stones,” said the girl; “the men make them; we have men of +special skill in such work.” + +“Haven’t you any iron tools?” + +“Iron,” said the girl, “I don’t know what you mean.” It was the first +word she had not understood. + +“Are all your tools of flint?” asked Cyril. + +“Of course,” said the girl, opening her eyes wide. + +I wish I had time to tell you of that talk. The English children wanted +to hear all about this new place, but they also wanted to tell of their +own country. It was like when you come back from your holidays and you +want to hear and to tell everything at the same time. As the talk went +on there were more and more words that the girl could not understand, +and the children soon gave up the attempt to explain to her what their +own country was like, when they began to see how very few of the things +they had always thought they could not do without were really not at +all necessary to life. + +The girl showed them how the huts were made—indeed, as one was being +made that very day she took them to look at it. The way of building was +very different from ours. The men stuck long pieces of wood into a +piece of ground the size of the hut they wanted to make. These were +about eight inches apart; then they put in another row about eight +inches away from the first, and then a third row still further out. +Then all the space between was filled up with small branches and twigs, +and then daubed over with black mud worked with the feet till it was +soft and sticky like putty. + +The girl told them how the men went hunting with flint spears and +arrows, and how they made boats with reeds and clay. Then she explained +the reed thing in the river that she had taken the fish out of. It was +a fish-trap—just a ring of reeds set up in the water with only one +little opening in it, and in this opening, just below the water, were +stuck reeds slanting the way of the river’s flow, so that the fish, +when they had swum sillily in, sillily couldn’t get out again. She +showed them the clay pots and jars and platters, some of them +ornamented with black and red patterns, and the most wonderful things +made of flint and different sorts of stone, beads, and ornaments, and +tools and weapons of all sorts and kinds. + +“It is really wonderful,” said Cyril patronizingly, “when you consider +that it’s all eight thousand years ago—” + +“I don’t understand you,” said the girl. + +“It _isn’t_ eight thousand years ago,” whispered Jane. “It’s _now_—and +that’s just what I don’t like about it. I say, _do_ let’s get home +again before anything more happens. You can see for yourselves the +charm isn’t here.” + +“What’s in that place in the middle?” asked Anthea, struck by a sudden +thought, and pointing to the fence. + +“That’s the secret sacred place,” said the girl in a whisper. “No one +knows what is there. There are many walls, and inside the insidest one +_It_ is, but no one knows what _It_ is except the headsmen.” + +“I believe _you_ know,” said Cyril, looking at her very hard. + +“I’ll give you this if you’ll tell me,” said Anthea taking off a +bead-ring which had already been much admired. + +“Yes,” said the girl, catching eagerly at the ring. “My father is one +of the heads, and I know a water charm to make him talk in his sleep. +And he has spoken. I will tell you. But if they know I have told you +they will kill me. In the insidest inside there is a stone box, and in +it there is the Amulet. None knows whence it came. It came from very +far away.” + +“Have you seen it?” asked Anthea. + +The girl nodded. + +“Is it anything like this?” asked Jane, rashly producing the charm. + +The girl’s face turned a sickly greenish-white. + +“Hide it, hide it,” she whispered. “You must put it back. If they see +it they will kill us all. You for taking it, and me for knowing that +there was such a thing. Oh, woe—woe! why did you ever come here?” + +“Don’t be frightened,” said Cyril. “They shan’t know. Jane, don’t you +be such a little jack-ape again—that’s all. You see what will happen if +you do. Now, tell me—” He turned to the girl, but before he had time to +speak the question there was a loud shout, and a man bounded in through +the opening in the thorn-hedge. + +“Many foes are upon us!” he cried. “Make ready the defences!” + +His breath only served for that, and he lay panting on the ground. + +“Oh, _do_ let’s go home!” said Jane. “Look here—I don’t care—I _will!_” + +She held up the charm. Fortunately all the strange, fair people were +too busy to notice _her_. She held up the charm. And nothing happened. + +“You haven’t said the word of power,” said Anthea. + +Jane hastily said it—and still nothing happened. + +“Hold it up towards the East, you silly!” said Robert. + +“Which _is_ the East?” said Jane, dancing about in her agony of terror. + +Nobody knew. So they opened the fish-bag to ask the Psammead. + +And the bag had only a waterproof sheet in it. + +The Psammead was gone. + +“Hide the sacred thing! Hide it! Hide it!” whispered the girl. + +Cyril shrugged his shoulders, and tried to look as brave as he knew he +ought to feel. + +“Hide it up, Pussy,” he said. “We are in for it now. We’ve just got to +stay and see it out.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. +THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE + + +Here was a horrible position! Four English children, whose proper date +was A.D. 1905, and whose proper address was London, set down in Egypt +in the year 6000 B.C. with no means whatever of getting back into their +own time and place. They could not find the East, and the sun was of no +use at the moment, because some officious person had once explained to +Cyril that the sun did not really set in the West at all—nor rise in +the East either, for the matter of that. + +The Psammead had crept out of the bass-bag when they were not looking +and had basely deserted them. + +An enemy was approaching. There would be a fight. People get killed in +fights, and the idea of taking part in a fight was one that did not +appeal to the children. + +The man who had brought the news of the enemy still lay panting on the +sand. His tongue was hanging out, long and red, like a dog’s. The +people of the village were hurriedly filling the gaps in the fence with +thorn-bushes from the heap that seemed to have been piled there ready +for just such a need. They lifted the cluster-thorns with long +poles—much as men at home, nowadays, lift hay with a fork. + +Jane bit her lip and tried to decide not to cry. + +Robert felt in his pocket for a toy pistol and loaded it with a pink +paper cap. It was his only weapon. + +Cyril tightened his belt two holes. + +And Anthea absently took the drooping red roses from the buttonholes of +the others, bit the ends of the stalks, and set them in a pot of water +that stood in the shadow by a hut door. She was always rather silly +about flowers. + +“Look here!” she said. “I think perhaps the Psammead is really +arranging something for us. I don’t believe it would go away and leave +us all alone in the Past. I’m certain it wouldn’t.” + +Jane succeeded in deciding not to cry—at any rate yet. + +“But what can we do?” Robert asked. + +“Nothing,” Cyril answered promptly, “except keep our eyes and ears +open. Look! That runner chap’s getting his wind. Let’s go and hear what +he’s got to say.” + +The runner had risen to his knees and was sitting back on his heels. +Now he stood up and spoke. He began by some respectful remarks +addressed to the heads of the village. His speech got more interesting +when he said— + +“I went out in my raft to snare ibises, and I had gone up the stream an +hour’s journey. Then I set my snares and waited. And I heard the sound +of many wings, and looking up, saw many herons circling in the air. And +I saw that they were afraid; so I took thought. A beast may scare one +heron, coming upon it suddenly, but no beast will scare a whole flock +of herons. And still they flew and circled, and would not light. So +then I knew that what scared the herons must be men, and men who knew +not our ways of going softly so as to take the birds and beasts +unawares. By this I knew they were not of our race or of our place. So, +leaving my raft, I crept along the river bank, and at last came upon +the strangers. They are many as the sands of the desert, and their +spear-heads shine red like the sun. They are a terrible people, and +their march is towards us. Having seen this, I ran, and did not stay +till I was before you.” + +“These are _your_ folk,” said the headman, turning suddenly and angrily +on Cyril, “you came as spies for them.” + +“We did _not_,” said Cyril indignantly. “We wouldn’t be spies for +anything. I’m certain these people aren’t a bit like us. Are they now?” +he asked the runner. + +“No,” was the answer. “These men’s faces were darkened, and their hair +black as night. Yet these strange children, maybe, are their gods, who +have come before to make ready the way for them.” + +A murmur ran through the crowd. + +“No, _no_,” said Cyril again. “We are on your side. We will help you to +guard your sacred things.” + +The headman seemed impressed by the fact that Cyril knew that there +_were_ sacred things to be guarded. He stood a moment gazing at the +children. Then he said— + +“It is well. And now let all make offering, that we may be strong in +battle.” + +The crowd dispersed, and nine men, wearing antelope-skins, grouped +themselves in front of the opening in the hedge in the middle of the +village. And presently, one by one, the men brought all sorts of +things—hippopotamus flesh, ostrich-feathers, the fruit of the date +palms, red chalk, green chalk, fish from the river, and ibex from the +mountains; and the headman received these gifts. There was another +hedge inside the first, about a yard from it, so that there was a lane +inside between the hedges. And every now and then one of the headmen +would disappear along this lane with full hands and come back with +hands empty. + +“They’re making offerings to their Amulet,” said Anthea. “We’d better +give something too.” + +The pockets of the party, hastily explored, yielded a piece of pink +tape, a bit of sealing-wax, and part of the Waterbury watch that Robert +had not been able to help taking to pieces at Christmas and had never +had time to rearrange. Most boys have a watch in this condition. + +They presented their offerings, and Anthea added the red roses. + +The headman who took the things looked at them with awe, especially at +the red roses and the Waterbury-watch fragment. + +“This is a day of very wondrous happenings,” he said. “I have no more +room in me to be astonished. Our maiden said there was peace between +you and us. But for this coming of a foe we should have made sure.” + +The children shuddered. + +“Now speak. Are you upon our side?” + +“_Yes_. Don’t I keep telling you we are?” Robert said. “Look here. I +will give you a sign. You see this.” He held out the toy pistol. “I +shall speak to it, and if it answers me you will know that I and the +others are come to guard your sacred thing—that we’ve just made the +offerings to.” + +“Will that god whose image you hold in your hand speak to you alone, or +shall I also hear it?” asked the man cautiously. + +“You’ll be surprised when you _do_ hear it,” said Robert. “Now, then.” +He looked at the pistol and said— + +“If we are to guard the sacred treasure within”—he pointed to the +hedged-in space—“speak with thy loud voice, and we shall obey.” + +He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, for it +was a two-shilling pistol, and the caps were excellent. + +Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on the +sand. + +The headman who had accepted the test rose first. + +“The voice has spoken,” he said. “Lead them into the ante-room of the +sacred thing.” + +So now the four children were led in through the opening of the hedge +and round the lane till they came to an opening in the inner hedge, and +they went through an opening in that, and so passed into another lane. + +The thing was built something like this, and all the hedges were of +brushwood and thorns: + +[Illustration] + +“It’s like the maze at Hampton Court,” whispered Anthea. + +The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the middle of +the maze was round-roofed, and a curtain of skins hung over the +doorway. + +“Here you may wait,” said their guide, “but do not dare to pass the +curtain.” He himself passed it and disappeared. + +“But look here,” whispered Cyril, “some of us ought to be outside in +case the Psammead turns up.” + +“Don’t let’s get separated from each other, whatever we do,” said +Anthea. “It’s quite bad enough to be separated from the Psammead. We +can’t do anything while that man is in there. Let’s all go out into the +village again. We can come back later now we know the way in. That +man’ll have to fight like the rest, most likely, if it comes to +fighting. If we find the Psammead we’ll go straight home. It must be +getting late, and I don’t much like this mazy place.” + +They went out and told the headman that they would protect the treasure +when the fighting began. And now they looked about them and were able +to see exactly how a first-class worker in flint flakes and notches an +arrow-head or the edge of an axe—an advantage which no other person now +alive has ever enjoyed. The boys found the weapons most interesting. +The arrow-heads were not on arrows such as you shoot from a bow, but on +javelins, for throwing from the hand. The chief weapon was a stone +fastened to a rather short stick something like the things gentlemen +used to carry about and call life-preservers in the days of the +garrotters. Then there were long things like spears or lances, with +flint knives—horribly sharp—and flint battle-axes. + +Everyone in the village was so busy that the place was like an ant-heap +when you have walked into it by accident. The women were busy and even +the children. + +Quite suddenly all the air seemed to glow and grow red—it was like the +sudden opening of a furnace door, such as you may see at Woolwich +Arsenal if you ever have the luck to be taken there—and then almost as +suddenly it was as though the furnace doors had been shut. For the sun +had set, and it was night. + +The sun had that abrupt way of setting in Egypt eight thousand years +ago, and I believe it has never been able to break itself of the habit, +and sets in exactly the same manner to the present day. The girl +brought the skins of wild deer and led the children to a heap of dry +sedge. + +“My father says they will not attack yet. Sleep!” she said, and it +really seemed a good idea. You may think that in the midst of all these +dangers the children would not have been able to sleep—but somehow, +though they were rather frightened now and then, the feeling was +growing in them—deep down and almost hidden away, but still +growing—that the Psammead was to be trusted, and that they were really +and truly safe. This did not prevent their being quite as much +frightened as they could bear to be without being perfectly miserable. + +“I suppose we’d better go to sleep,” said Robert. “I don’t know what on +earth poor old Nurse will do with us out all night; set the police on +our tracks, I expect. I only wish they could find us! A dozen policemen +would be rather welcome just now. But it’s no use getting into a stew +over it,” he added soothingly. “Good night.” + +And they all fell asleep. + +They were awakened by long, loud, terrible sounds that seemed to come +from everywhere at once—horrible threatening shouts and shrieks and +howls that sounded, as Cyril said later, like the voices of men +thirsting for their enemies’ blood. + +“It is the voice of the strange men,” said the girl, coming to them +trembling through the dark. “They have attacked the walls, and the +thorns have driven them back. My father says they will not try again +till daylight. But they are shouting to frighten us. As though we were +savages! Dwellers in the swamps!” she cried indignantly. + +All night the terrible noise went on, but when the sun rose, as +abruptly as he had set, the sound suddenly ceased. + +The children had hardly time to be glad of this before a shower of +javelins came hurtling over the great thorn-hedge, and everyone +sheltered behind the huts. But next moment another shower of weapons +came from the opposite side, and the crowd rushed to other shelter. +Cyril pulled out a javelin that had stuck in the roof of the hut beside +him. Its head was of brightly burnished copper. + +Then the sound of shouting arose again and the crackle of dried thorns. +The enemy was breaking down the hedge. All the villagers swarmed to the +point whence the crackling and the shouting came; they hurled stones +over the hedges, and short arrows with flint heads. The children had +never before seen men with the fighting light in their eyes. It was +very strange and terrible, and gave you a queer thick feeling in your +throat; it was quite different from the pictures of fights in the +illustrated papers at home. + +It seemed that the shower of stones had driven back the besiegers. The +besieged drew breath, but at that moment the shouting and the crackling +arose on the opposite side of the village and the crowd hastened to +defend that point, and so the fight swayed to and fro across the +village, for the besieged had not the sense to divide their forces as +their enemies had done. + +Cyril noticed that every now and then certain of the fighting-men would +enter the maze, and come out with brighter faces, a braver aspect, and +a more upright carriage. + +“I believe they go and touch the Amulet,” he said. “You know the +Psammead said it could make people brave.” + +They crept through the maze, and watching they saw that Cyril was +right. A headman was standing in front of the skin curtain, and as the +warriors came before him he murmured a word they could not hear, and +touched their foreheads with something that they could not see. And +this something he held in his hands. And through his fingers they saw +the gleam of a red stone that they knew. + +The fight raged across the thorn-hedge outside. Suddenly there was a +loud and bitter cry. + +“They’re in! They’re in! The hedge is down!” + +The headman disappeared behind the deer-skin curtain. + +“He’s gone to hide it,” said Anthea. “Oh, Psammead dear, how could you +leave us!” + +Suddenly there was a shriek from inside the hut, and the headman +staggered out white with fear and fled out through the maze. The +children were as white as he. + +“Oh! What is it? What is it?” moaned Anthea. “Oh, Psammead, how could +you! How could you!” + +And the sound of the fight sank breathlessly, and swelled fiercely all +around. It was like the rising and falling of the waves of the sea. + +Anthea shuddered and said again, “Oh, Psammead, Psammead!” + +“Well?” said a brisk voice, and the curtain of skins was lifted at one +corner by a furry hand, and out peeped the bat’s ears and snail’s eyes +of the Psammead. + +Anthea caught it in her arms and a sigh of desperate relief was +breathed by each of the four. + +“Oh! which _is_ the East!” Anthea said, and she spoke hurriedly, for +the noise of wild fighting drew nearer and nearer. + +“Don’t choke me,” said the Psammead, “come inside.” + +The inside of the hut was pitch dark. + +“I’ve got a match,” said Cyril, and struck it. The floor of the hut was +of soft, loose sand. + +“I’ve been asleep here,” said the Psammead; “most comfortable it’s +been, the best sand I’ve had for a month. It’s all right. Everything’s +all right. I knew your only chance would be while the fight was going +on. That man won’t come back. I bit him, and he thinks I’m an Evil +Spirit. Now you’ve only got to take the thing and go.” + +The hut was hung with skins. Heaped in the middle were the offerings +that had been given the night before, Anthea’s roses fading on the top +of the heap. At one side of the hut stood a large square stone block, +and on it an oblong box of earthenware with strange figures of men and +beasts on it. + +“Is the thing in there?” asked Cyril, as the Psammead pointed a skinny +finger at it. + +“You must judge of that,” said the Psammead. “The man was just going to +bury the box in the sand when I jumped out at him and bit him.” + +“Light another match, Robert,” said Anthea. “Now, then quick! which is +the East?” + +“Why, where the sun rises, of course!” + +“But someone told us—” + +“Oh! they’ll tell you anything!” said the Psammead impatiently, getting +into its bass-bag and wrapping itself in its waterproof sheet. + +“But we can’t see the sun in here, and it isn’t rising anyhow,” said +Jane. + +“How you do waste time!” the Psammead said. “Why, the East’s where the +shrine is, of course. _There!_” + +It pointed to the great stone. + +And still the shouting and the clash of stone on metal sounded nearer +and nearer. The children could hear that the headmen had surrounded the +hut to protect their treasure as long as might be from the enemy. But +none dare to come in after the Psammead’s sudden fierce biting of the +headman. + +“Now, Jane,” said Cyril, very quickly. “I’ll take the Amulet, you stand +ready to hold up the charm, and be sure you don’t let it go as you come +through.” + +He made a step forward, but at that instant a great crackling overhead +ended in a blaze of sunlight. The roof had been broken in at one side, +and great slabs of it were being lifted off by two spears. As the +children trembled and winked in the new light, large dark hands tore +down the wall, and a dark face, with a blobby fat nose, looked over the +gap. Even at that awful moment Anthea had time to think that it was +very like the face of Mr Jacob Absalom, who had sold them the charm in +the shop near Charing Cross. + +“Here is their Amulet,” cried a harsh, strange voice; “it is this that +makes them strong to fight and brave to die. And what else have we +here—gods or demons?” + +He glared fiercely at the children, and the whites of his eyes were +very white indeed. He had a wet, red copper knife in his teeth. There +was not a moment to lose. + +“Jane, _Jane_, QUICK!” cried everyone passionately. + +Jane with trembling hands held up the charm towards the East, and Cyril +spoke the word of power. The Amulet grew to a great arch. Out beyond it +was the glaring Egyptian sky, the broken wall, the cruel, dark, +big-nosed face with the red, wet knife in its gleaming teeth. Within +the arch was the dull, faint, greeny-brown of London grass and trees. + +“Hold tight, Jane!” Cyril cried, and he dashed through the arch, +dragging Anthea and the Psammead after him. Robert followed, clutching +Jane. And in the ears of each, as they passed through the arch of the +charm, the sound and fury of battle died out suddenly and utterly, and +they heard only the low, dull, discontented hum of vast London, and the +peeking and patting of the sparrows on the gravel and the voices of the +ragged baby children playing Ring-o’-Roses on the yellow trampled +grass. And the charm was a little charm again in Jane’s hand, and there +was the basket with their dinner and the bathbuns lying just where they +had left it. + +“My hat!” said Cyril, drawing a long breath; “that was something like +an adventure.” + +“It was rather like one, certainly,” said the Psammead. + +They all lay still, breathing in the safe, quiet air of Regent’s Park. + +“We’d better go home at once,” said Anthea presently. “Old Nurse will +be most frightfully anxious. The sun looks about the same as it did +when we started yesterday. We’ve been away twenty-four hours.” + +“The buns are quite soft still,” said Cyril, feeling one; “I suppose +the dew kept them fresh.” + +They were not hungry, curiously enough. + +They picked up the dinner-basket and the Psammead-basket, and went +straight home. + +Old Nurse met them with amazement. + +“Well, if ever I did!” she said. “What’s gone wrong? You’ve soon tired +of your picnic.” + +The children took this to be bitter irony, which means saying the exact +opposite of what you mean in order to make yourself disagreeable; as +when you happen to have a dirty face, and someone says, “How nice and +clean you look!” + +“We’re very sorry,” began Anthea, but old Nurse said— + +“Oh, bless me, child, I don’t care! Please yourselves and you’ll please +me. Come in and get your dinners comf’table. I’ve got a potato on +a-boiling.” + +When she had gone to attend to the potatoes the children looked at each +other. Could it be that old Nurse had so changed that she no longer +cared that they should have been away from home for twenty-four +hours—all night in fact—without any explanation whatever? + +But the Psammead put its head out of its basket and said— + +“What’s the matter? Don’t you understand? You come back through the +charm-arch at the same time as you go through it. This isn’t tomorrow!” + +“Is it still yesterday?” asked Jane. + +“No, it’s today. The same as it’s always been. It wouldn’t do to go +mixing up the present and the Past, and cutting bits out of one to fit +into the other.” + +“Then all that adventure took no time at all?” + +“You can call it that if you like,” said the Psammead. “It took none of +the modern time, anyhow.” + +That evening Anthea carried up a steak for the learned gentleman’s +dinner. She persuaded Beatrice, the maid-of-all-work, who had given her +the bangle with the blue stone, to let her do it. And she stayed and +talked to him, by special invitation, while he ate the dinner. + +She told him the whole adventure, beginning with— + +“This afternoon we found ourselves on the bank of the River Nile,” and +ending up with, “And then we remembered how to get back, and there we +were in Regent’s Park, and it hadn’t taken any time at all.” + +She did not tell anything about the charm or the Psammead, because that +was forbidden, but the story was quite wonderful enough even as it was +to entrance the learned gentleman. + +“You are a most unusual little girl,” he said. “Who tells you all these +things?” + +“No one,” said Anthea, “they just happen.” + +“Make-believe,” he said slowly, as one who recalls and pronounces a +long-forgotten word. + +He sat long after she had left him. At last he roused himself with a +start. + +“I really must take a holiday,” he said; “my nerves must be all out of +order. I actually have a perfectly distinct impression that the little +girl from the rooms below came in and gave me a coherent and graphic +picture of life as I conceive it to have been in pre-dynastic Egypt. +Strange what tricks the mind will play! I shall have to be more +careful.” + +He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a mile +walk before he went back to his work. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +THE WAY TO BABYLON + + +“How many miles to Babylon? + Three score and ten! +Can I get there by candle light? + Yes, and back again!” + + +Jane was singing to her doll, rocking it to and fro in the house which +she had made for herself and it. The roof of the house was the +dining-table, and the walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hanging +all round, and kept in their places by books laid on their top ends at +the table edge. + +The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. You +know how it is done—with the largest and best tea-tray and the surface +of the stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days when the stair +rods are being cleaned, and the carpet is only held by the nails at the +top. Of course, it is one of the five or six thoroughly tip-top games +that grown-up people are so unjust to—and old Nurse, though a brick in +many respects, was quite enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot +down on the tobogganing long before any of the performers had had half +enough of it. The tea-tray was taken away, and the baffled party +entered the sitting-room, in exactly the mood not to be pleased if they +could help it. + +So Cyril said, “What a beastly mess!” + +And Robert added, “Do shut up, Jane!” + +Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try another +song. “I’m sick to death of that,” said she. + +It was a wet day, so none of the plans for seeing all the sights of +London that can be seen for nothing could be carried out. Everyone had +been thinking all the morning about the wonderful adventures of the day +before, when Jane had held up the charm and it had turned into an arch, +through which they had walked straight out of the present time and the +Regent’s Park into the land of Egypt eight thousand years ago. The +memory of yesterday’s happenings was still extremely fresh and +frightening, so that everyone hoped that no one would suggest another +excursion into the past, for it seemed to all that yesterday’s +adventures were quite enough to last for at least a week. Yet each felt +a little anxious that the others should not think it was afraid, and +presently Cyril, who really was not a coward, began to see that it +would not be at all nice if he should have to think himself one. So he +said— + +“I say—about that charm—Jane—come out. We ought to talk about it, +anyhow.” + +“Oh, if that’s all,” said Robert. + +Jane obediently wriggled to the front of her house and sat there. She +felt for the charm, to make sure that it was still round her neck. + +“It _isn’t_ all,” said Cyril, saying much more than he meant because he +thought Robert’s tone had been rude—as indeed it had. “We ought to go +and look for that Amulet. What’s the good of having a first-class charm +and keeping it idle, just eating its head off in the stable.” + +“_I’m_ game for anything, of course,” said Robert; but he added, with a +fine air of chivalry, “only I don’t think the girls are keen today +somehow.” + +“Oh, yes; I am,” said Anthea hurriedly. “If you think I’m afraid, I’m +not.” + +“I am though,” said Jane heavily; “I didn’t like it, and I won’t go +there again—not for anything I won’t.” + +“We shouldn’t go _there_ again, silly,” said Cyril; “it would be some +other place.” + +“I daresay; a place with lions and tigers in it as likely as not.” + +Seeing Jane so frightened, made the others feel quite brave. They said +they were certain they ought to go. + +“It’s so ungrateful to the Psammead not to,” Anthea added, a little +primly. + +Jane stood up. She was desperate. + +“I won’t!” she cried; “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! If you make me I’ll +scream and I’ll scream, and I’ll tell old Nurse, and I’ll get her to +burn the charm in the kitchen fire. So now, then!” + +You can imagine how furious everyone was with Jane for feeling what +each of them had felt all the morning. In each breast the same thought +arose, “No one can say it’s _our_ fault.” And they at once began to +show Jane how angry they all felt that all the fault was hers. This +made them feel quite brave. + +“Tell-tale tit, its tongue shall be split, +And all the dogs in our town shall have a little bit,” + + +sang Robert. + +“It’s always the way if you have girls in anything.” Cyril spoke in a +cold displeasure that was worse than Robert’s cruel quotation, and even +Anthea said, “Well, _I’m_ not afraid if I _am_ a girl,” which of +course, was the most cutting thing of all. + +Jane picked up her doll and faced the others with what is sometimes +called the courage of despair. + +“I don’t care,” she said; “I _won’t_, so there! It’s just silly going +to places when you don’t want to, and when you don’t know what they’re +going to be like! You can laugh at me as much as you like. You’re +beasts—and I hate you all!” + +With these awful words she went out and banged the door. + +Then the others would not look at each other, and they did not feel so +brave as they had done. + +Cyril took up a book, but it was not interesting to read. Robert kicked +a chair-leg absently. His feet were always eloquent in moments of +emotion. Anthea stood pleating the end of the tablecloth into folds—she +seemed earnestly anxious to get all the pleats the same size. The sound +of Jane’s sobs had died away. + +Suddenly Anthea said, “Oh! let it be ‘pax’—poor little Pussy—you know +she’s the youngest.” + +“She called us beasts,” said Robert, kicking the chair suddenly. + +“Well,” said Cyril, who was subject to passing fits of justice, “we +began, you know. At least you did.” Cyril’s justice was always +uncompromising. + +“I’m not going to say I’m sorry if you mean that,” said Robert, and the +chair-leg cracked to the kick he gave as he said it. + +“Oh, do let’s,” said Anthea, “we’re three to one, and Mother does so +hate it if we row. Come on. I’ll say I’m sorry first, though I didn’t +say anything, hardly.” + +“All right, let’s get it over,” said Cyril, opening the +door.“Hi—you—Pussy!” + +Far away up the stairs a voice could be heard singing brokenly, but +still defiantly— + +“How many miles (sniff) to Babylon? + Three score and ten! (sniff) +Can I get there by candle light? + Yes (sniff), and back again!” + + +It was trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would +not give herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, +taking three at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on +the top step of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was +trying to sing. + +“I say, Pussy, let it be pax! We’re sorry if you are—” + +It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being the +youngest was entitled to this ceremonial. + +Anthea added a special apology of her own. + +“I’m sorry if I was a pig, Pussy dear,” she said—“especially because in +my really and truly inside mind I’ve been feeling a little as if I’d +rather not go into the Past again either. But then, do think. If we +don’t go we shan’t get the Amulet, and oh, Pussy, think if we could +only get Father and Mother and The Lamb safe back! We _must_ go, but +we’ll wait a day or two if you like and then perhaps you’ll feel +braver.” + +“Raw meat makes you brave, however cowardly you are,” said Robert, to +show that there was now no ill-feeling, “and cranberries—that’s what +Tartars eat, and they’re so brave it’s simply awful. I suppose +cranberries are only for Christmas time, but I’ll ask old Nurse to let +you have your chop very raw if you like.” + +“I think I could be brave without that,” said Jane hastily; she hated +underdone meat. “I’ll try.” + +At this moment the door of the learned gentleman’s room opened, and he +looked out. + +“Excuse me,” he said, in that gentle, polite weary voice of his, “but +was I mistaken in thinking that I caught a familiar word just now? Were +you not singing some old ballad of Babylon?” + +“No,” said Robert, “at least Jane was singing ‘How many miles,’ but I +shouldn’t have thought you could have heard the words for—” + +He would have said, “for the sniffing,” but Anthea pinched him just in +time. + +“I did not hear _all_ the words,” said the learned gentleman. “I wonder +would you recite them to me?” + +So they all said together— + +“How many miles to Babylon? + Three score and ten! +Can I get there by candle light? + Yes, and back again!” + + +“I wish one could,” the learned gentleman said with a sigh. + +“Can’t you?” asked Jane. + +“Babylon has fallen,” he answered with a sigh. “You know it was once a +great and beautiful city, and the centre of learning and Art, and now +it is only ruins, and so covered up with earth that people are not even +agreed as to where it once stood.” + +He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look in +them, as though he could see through the staircase window the splendour +and glory of ancient Babylon. + +“I say,” Cyril remarked abruptly. “You know that charm we showed you, +and you told us how to say the name that’s on it?” + +“Yes!” + +“Well, do you think that charm was ever in Babylon?” + +“It’s quite possible,” the learned gentleman replied. “Such charms have +been found in very early Egyptian tombs, yet their origin has not been +accurately determined as Egyptian. They may have been brought from +Asia. Or, supposing the charm to have been fashioned in Egypt, it might +very well have been carried to Babylon by some friendly embassy, or +brought back by the Babylonish army from some Egyptian campaign as part +of the spoils of war. The inscription may be much later than the charm. +Oh yes! it is a pleasant fancy, that that splendid specimen of yours +was once used amid Babylonish surroundings.” + +The others looked at each other, but it was Jane who spoke. + +“Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and +throwing things about?” For she had read the thoughts of the others by +the unerring light of her own fears. + +“The Babylonians were certainly more gentle than the Assyrians,” said +the learned gentleman. “And they were not savages by any means. A very +high level of culture,” he looked doubtfully at his audience and went +on, “I mean that they made beautiful statues and jewellery, and built +splendid palaces. And they were very learned—they had glorious +libraries and high towers for the purpose of astrological and +astronomical observation.” + +“Er?” said Robert. + +“I mean for—star-gazing and fortune-telling,” said the learned +gentleman, “and there were temples and beautiful hanging gardens—” + +“I’ll go to Babylon if you like,” said Jane abruptly, and the others +hastened to say “Done!” before she should have time to change her mind. + +“Ah,” said the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, “one can go so +far in dreams, when one is young.” He sighed again, and then adding +with a laboured briskness, “I hope you’ll have a—a—jolly game,” he went +into his room and shut the door. + +“He said ‘jolly’ as if it was a foreign language,” said Cyril. “Come +on, let’s get the Psammead and go now. I think Babylon seems a most +frightfully jolly place to go to.” + +So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag with the +waterproof sheet, in case of inclement weather in Babylon. It was very +cross, but it said it would as soon go to Babylon as anywhere else. +“The sand is good thereabouts,” it added. + +Then Jane held up the charm, and Cyril said— + +“We want to go to Babylon to look for the part of you that was lost. +Will you please let us go there through you?” + +“Please put us down just outside,” said Jane hastily; “and then if we +don’t like it we needn’t go inside.” + +“Don’t be all day,” said the Psammead. + +So Anthea hastily uttered the word of power, without which the charm +could do nothing. + +“Ur—Hekau—Setcheh!” she said softly, and as she spoke the charm grew +into an arch so tall that the top of it was close against the bedroom +ceiling. Outside the arch was the bedroom painted chest-of-drawers and +the Kidderminster carpet, and the washhand-stand with the riveted +willow-pattern jug, and the faded curtains, and the dull light of +indoors on a wet day. Through the arch showed the gleam of soft green +leaves and white blossoms. They stepped forward quite happily. Even +Jane felt that this did not look like lions, and her hand hardly +trembled at all as she held the charm for the others to go through, and +last, slipped through herself, and hung the charm, now grown small +again, round her neck. + +The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafed +fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, all +white-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long green grass under +their feet grew crocuses and lilies, and strange blue flowers. In the +branches overhead thrushes and blackbirds were singing, and the coo of +a pigeon came softly to them in the green quietness of the orchard. + +“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” cried Anthea. + +“Why, it’s like home exactly—I mean England—only everything’s bluer, +and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.” + +The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane +admitted that it was all very pretty. + +“I’m certain there’s nothing to be frightened of here,” said Anthea. + +“I don’t know,” said Jane. “I suppose the fruit-trees go on just the +same even when people are killing each other. I didn’t half like what +the learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens. I suppose they +have gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn’t one.” + +“Of course it isn’t,” said Cyril. “The hanging gardens are just gardens +hung up—_I_ think on chains between houses, don’t you know, like trays. +Come on; let’s get somewhere.” + +They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could see was +nothing but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end of their +orchard was another one, only separated from theirs by a little stream +of clear water. They jumped this, and went on. Cyril, who was fond of +gardening—which meant that he liked to watch the gardener at work—was +able to command the respect of the others by telling them the names of +a good many trees. There were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots, +and fig-trees with their big five-fingered leaves. And every now and +then the children had to cross another brook. + +“It’s like between the squares in _Through the Looking-glass_,” said +Anthea. + +At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the +other orchards. It had a low building in one corner. + +“These are vines,” said Cyril superiorly, “and I know this is a +vineyard. I shouldn’t wonder if there was a wine-press inside that +place over there.” + +At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, very +rough, and not at all like the roads you are used to. It had cypress +trees and acacia trees along it, and a sort of hedge of tamarisks, like +those you see on the road between Nice and Cannes, or near +Littlehampton, if you’ve only been as far as that. + +And now in front of them they could see a great mass of buildings. +There were scattered houses of wood and stone here and there among +green orchards, and beyond these a great wall that shone red in the +early morning sun. The wall was enormously high—more than half the +height of St Paul’s—and in the wall were set enormous gates that shone +like gold as the rising sun beat on them. Each gate had a solid square +tower on each side of it that stood out from the wall and rose above +it. Beyond the wall were more towers and houses, gleaming with gold and +bright colours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue swirl of a great +river. And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, that the +river flowed out from the town under a great arch in the wall. + +“Those feathery things along by the water are palms,” said Cyril +instructively. + +“Oh, yes; you know everything,” Robert replied. “What’s all that +grey-green stuff you see away over there, where it’s all flat and +sandy?” + +“All right,” said Cyril loftily, “_I_ don’t want to tell you anything. +I only thought you’d like to know a palm-tree when you saw it again.” + +“Look!” cried Anthea; “they’re opening the gates.” + +And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and +instantly a little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and along +the road towards them. + +The children, with one accord, crouched behind the tamarisk hedge. + +“I don’t like the sound of those gates,” said Jane. “Fancy being inside +when they shut. You’d never get out.” + +“You’ve got an arch of your own to go out by,” the Psammead put its +head out of the basket to remind her. “Don’t behave so like a girl. If +I were you I should just march right into the town and ask to see the +king.” + +There was something at once simple and grand about this idea, and it +pleased everyone. + +So when the work-people had passed (they _were_ work-people, the +children felt sure, because they were dressed so plainly—just one long +blue shirt thing—of blue or yellow) the four children marched boldly up +to the brazen gate between the towers. The arch above the gate was +quite a tunnel, the walls were so thick. + +“Courage,” said Cyril. “Step out. It’s no use trying to sneak past. Be +bold!” + +Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into “The British +Grenadiers”, and to its quick-step they approached the gates of +Babylon. + +“Some talk of Alexander, + And some of Hercules, +Of Hector and Lysander, + And such great names as these. +But of all the gallant heroes...” + + +This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in bright +armour suddenly barred their way with crossed spears. + +“Who goes there?” they said. + +(I think I must have explained to you before how it was that the +children were always able to understand the language of any place they +might happen to be in, and to be themselves understood. If not, I have +no time to explain it now.) + +“We come from very far,” said Cyril mechanically. “From the Empire +where the sun never sets, and we want to see your King.” + +“If it’s quite convenient,” amended Anthea. + +“The King (may he live for ever!),” said the gatekeeper, “is gone to +fetch home his fourteenth wife. Where on earth have you come from not +to know that?” + +“The Queen then,” said Anthea hurriedly, and not taking any notice of +the question as to where they had come from. + +“The Queen,” said the gatekeeper, “(may she live for ever!) gives +audience today three hours after sunrising.” + +“But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?” asked Cyril. + +The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared less +interested in them than they could have thought possible. But the man +who had crossed spears with him to bar the children’s way was more +human. + +“Let them go in and look about them,” he said. “I’ll wager my best +sword they’ve never seen anything to come near our little—village.” + +He said it in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean +the “herring pond”. + +The gatekeeper hesitated. + +“They’re only children, after all,” said the other, who had children of +his own. “Let me off for a few minutes, Captain, and I’ll take them to +my place and see if my good woman can’t fit them up in something a +little less outlandish than their present rig. Then they can have a +look round without being mobbed. May I go?” + +“Oh yes, if you like,” said the Captain, “but don’t be all day.” + +The man led them through the dark arch into the town. And it was very +different from London. For one thing, everything in London seems to be +patched up out of odds and ends, but these houses seemed to have been +built by people who liked the same sort of things. Not that they were +all alike, for though all were squarish, they were of different sizes, +and decorated in all sorts of different ways, some with paintings in +bright colours, some with black and silver designs. There were +terraces, and gardens, and balconies, and open spaces with trees. Their +guide took them to a little house in a back street, where a kind-faced +woman sat spinning at the door of a very dark room. + +“Here,” he said, “just lend these children a mantle each, so that they +can go about and see the place till the Queen’s audience begins. You +leave that wool for a bit, and show them round if you like. I must be +off now.” + +The woman did as she was told, and the four children, wrapped in +fringed mantles, went with her all about the town, and oh! how I wish I +had time to tell you all that they saw. It was all so wonderfully +different from anything you have ever seen. For one thing, all the +houses were dazzlingly bright, and many of them covered with pictures. +Some had great creatures carved in stone at each side of the door. Then +the people—there were no black frock-coats and tall hats; no dingy +coats and skirts of good, useful, ugly stuffs warranted to wear. +Everyone’s clothes were bright and beautiful with blue and scarlet and +green and gold. + +The market was brighter than you would think anything could be. There +were stalls for everything you could possibly want—and for a great many +things that if you wanted here and now, want would be your master. +There were pineapples and peaches in heaps—and stalls of crockery and +glass things, beautiful shapes and glorious colours, there were stalls +for necklaces, and clasps, and bracelets, and brooches, for woven +stuffs, and furs, and embroidered linen. The children had never seen +half so many beautiful things together, even at Liberty’s. + +It seemed no time at all before the woman said— + +“It’s nearly time now. We ought to be getting on towards the palace. +It’s as well to be early.” + +So they went to the palace, and when they got there it was more +splendid than anything they had seen yet. + +For it was glowing with colours, and with gold and silver and black and +white—like some magnificent embroidery. Flight after flight of broad +marble steps led up to it, and at the edges of the stairs stood great +images, twenty times as big as a man—images of men with wings like +chain armour, and hawks’ heads, and winged men with the heads of dogs. +And there were the statues of great kings. + +Between the flights of steps were terraces where fountains played, and +the Queen’s Guard in white and scarlet, and armour that shone like +gold, stood by twos lining the way up the stairs; and a great body of +them was massed by the vast door of the palace itself, where it stood +glittering like an impossibly radiant peacock in the noon-day sun. + +All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of the +Queen. Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy flounces, poor +folks in plain and simple clothes, dandies with beards oiled and +curled. + +And Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane, went with the crowd. + +At the gate of the palace the Psammead put one eye cautiously out of +the basket and whispered— + +“I can’t be bothered with queens. I’ll go home with this lady. I’m sure +she’ll get me some sand if you ask her to.” + +“Oh! don’t leave us,” said Jane. The woman was giving some last +instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane. + +“Don’t be a little muff,” said the Psammead quite fiercely. “It’s not a +bit of good your having a charm. You never use it. If you want me +you’ve only got to say the name of power and ask the charm to bring me +to you.” + +“I’d rather go with you,” said Jane. And it was the most surprising +thing she had ever said in her life. + +Everyone opened its mouth without thinking of manners, and Anthea, who +was peeping into the Psammead’s basket, saw that its mouth opened wider +than anybody’s. + +“You needn’t gawp like that,” Jane went on. “I’m not going to be +bothered with queens any more than IT is. And I know, wherever it is, +it’ll take jolly good care that it’s safe.” + +“She’s right there,” said everyone, for they had observed that the +Psammead had a way of knowing which side its bread was buttered. + +She turned to the woman and said, “You’ll take me home with you, won’t +you? And let me play with your little girls till the others have done +with the Queen.” + +“Surely I will, little heart!” said the woman. + +And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, who +took the woman’s hand, and trotted contentedly away with the Psammead’s +bag under the other arm. + +The others stood looking after her till she, the woman, and the basket +were lost in the many-coloured crowd. Then Anthea turned once more to +the palace’s magnificent doorway and said— + +“Let’s ask the porter to take care of our Babylonian overcoats.” + +So they took off the garments that the woman had lent them and stood +amid the jostling petitioners of the Queen in their own English frocks +and coats and hats and boots. + +“We want to see the Queen,” said Cyril; “we come from the far Empire +where the sun never sets!” + +A murmur of surprise and a thrill of excitement ran through the crowd. +The door-porter spoke to a black man, he spoke to someone else. There +was a whispering, waiting pause. Then a big man, with a cleanly-shaven +face, beckoned them from the top of a flight of red marble steps. + +They went up; the boots of Robert clattering more than usual because he +was so nervous. A door swung open, a curtain was drawn back. A double +line of bowing forms in gorgeous raiment formed a lane that led to the +steps of the throne, and as the children advanced hurriedly there came +from the throne a voice very sweet and kind. + +“Three children from the land where the sun never sets! Let them draw +hither without fear.” + +In another minute they were kneeling at the throne’s foot, saying, “O +Queen, live for ever!” exactly as the woman had taught them. And a +splendid dream-lady, all gold and silver and jewels and snowy drift of +veils, was raising Anthea, and saying— + +“Don’t be frightened, I really am _so_ glad you came! The land where +the sun never sets! I am delighted to see you! I was getting quite too +dreadfully bored for anything!” + +And behind Anthea the kneeling Cyril whispered in the ears of the +respectful Robert— + +“Bobs, don’t say anything to Panther. It’s no use upsetting her, but we +didn’t ask for Jane’s address, and the Psammead’s with her.” + +“Well,” whispered Robert, “the charm can bring them to us at any +moment. _It_ said so.” + +“Oh, yes,” whispered Cyril, in miserable derision, “_we’re_ all right, +of course. So we are! Oh, yes! If we’d only _got_ the charm.” + +Then Robert saw, and he murmured, “Crikey!” at the foot of the throne +of Babylon; while Cyril hoarsely whispered the plain English fact— + +“Jane’s got the charm round her neck, you silly cuckoo.” + +“Crikey!” Robert repeated in heart-broken undertones. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +“THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT” + + +The Queen threw three of the red and gold embroidered cushions off the +throne on to the marble steps that led up to it. + +“Just make yourselves comfortable there,” she said. “I’m simply dying +to talk to you, and to hear all about your wonderful country and how +you got here, and everything, but I have to do justice every morning. +Such a bore, isn’t it? Do you do justice in your own country?” + +“No,” said Cyril; “at least of course we try to, but not in this public +sort of way, only in private.” + +“Ah, yes,” said the Queen, “I should much prefer a private audience +myself—much easier to manage. But public opinion has to be considered. +Doing justice is very hard work, even when you’re brought up to it.” + +“We don’t do justice, but we have to do scales, Jane and me,” said +Anthea, “twenty minutes a day. It’s simply horrid.” + +“What are scales?” asked the Queen, “and what is Jane?” + +“Jane is my little sister. One of the guards-at-the-gate’s wife is +taking care of her. And scales are music.” + +“I never heard of the instrument,” said the Queen. “Do you sing?” + +“Oh, yes. We can sing in parts,” said Anthea. + +“That _is_ magic,” said the Queen. “How many parts are you each cut +into before you do it?” + +“We aren’t cut at all,” said Robert hastily. “We couldn’t sing if we +were. We’ll show you afterwards.” + +“So you shall, and now sit quiet like dear children and hear me do +justice. The way I do it has always been admired. I oughtn’t to say +that, ought I? Sounds so conceited. But I don’t mind with you, dears. +Somehow I feel as though I’d known you quite a long time already.” + +The Queen settled herself on her throne and made a signal to her +attendants. The children, whispering together among the cushions on the +steps of the throne, decided that she was very beautiful and very kind, +but perhaps just the least bit flighty. + +The first person who came to ask for justice was a woman whose brother +had taken the money the father had left for her. The brother said it +was the uncle who had the money. There was a good deal of talk and the +children were growing rather bored, when the Queen suddenly clapped her +hands, and said— + +“Put both the men in prison till one of them owns up that the other is +innocent.” + +“But suppose they both did it?” Cyril could not help interrupting. + +“Then prison’s the best place for them,” said the Queen. + +“But suppose neither did it.” + +“That’s impossible,” said the Queen; “a thing’s not done unless someone +does it. And you mustn’t interrupt.” + +Then came a woman, in tears, with a torn veil and real ashes on her +head—at least Anthea thought so, but it may have been only road-dust. +She complained that her husband was in prison. + +“What for?” said the Queen. + +“They _said_ it was for speaking evil of your Majesty,” said the woman, +“but it wasn’t. Someone had a spite against him. That was what it was.” + +“How do you know he hadn’t spoken evil of me?” said the Queen. + +“No one could,” said the woman simply, “when they’d once seen your +beautiful face.” + +“Let the man out,” said the Queen, smiling. “Next case.” + +The next case was that of a boy who had stolen a fox. “Like the Spartan +boy,” whispered Robert. But the Queen ruled that nobody could have any +possible reason for owning a fox, and still less for stealing one. And +she did not believe that there were any foxes in Babylon; she, at any +rate, had never seen one. So the boy was released. + +The people came to the Queen about all sorts of family quarrels and +neighbourly misunderstandings—from a fight between brothers over the +division of an inheritance, to the dishonest and unfriendly conduct of +a woman who had borrowed a cooking-pot at the last New Year’s festival, +and not returned it yet. + +And the Queen decided everything, very, very decidedly indeed. At last +she clapped her hands quite suddenly and with extreme loudness, and +said— + +“The audience is over for today.” + +Everyone said, “May the Queen live for ever!” and went out. + +And the children were left alone in the justice-hall with the Queen of +Babylon and her ladies. + +“There!” said the Queen, with a long sigh of relief. “_That’s_ over! I +couldn’t have done another stitch of justice if you’d offered me the +crown of Egypt! Now come into the garden, and we’ll have a nice, long, +cosy talk.” + +She led them through long, narrow corridors whose walls they somehow +felt, were very, very thick, into a sort of garden courtyard. There +were thick shrubs closely planted, and roses were trained over +trellises, and made a pleasant shade—needed, indeed, for already the +sun was as hot as it is in England in August at the seaside. + +Slaves spread cushions on a low, marble terrace, and a big man with a +smooth face served cool drink in cups of gold studded with beryls. He +drank a little from the Queen’s cup before handing it to her. + +“That’s rather a nasty trick,” whispered Robert, who had been carefully +taught never to drink out of one of the nice, shiny, metal cups that +are chained to the London drinking fountains without first rinsing it +out thoroughly. + +The Queen overheard him. + +“Not at all,” said she. “Ritti-Marduk is a very clean man. And one has +to have _someone_ as taster, you know, because of poison.” + +The word made the children feel rather creepy; but Ritti-Marduk had +tasted all the cups, so they felt pretty safe. The drink was +delicious—very cold, and tasting like lemonade and partly like penny +ices. + +“Leave us,” said the Queen. And all the Court ladies, in their +beautiful, many-folded, many-coloured, fringed dresses, filed out +slowly, and the children were left alone with the Queen. + +“Now,” she said, “tell me all about yourselves.” + +They looked at each other. + +“You, Bobs,” said Cyril. + +“No—Anthea,” said Robert. + +“No—you—Cyril,” said Anthea. “Don’t you remember how pleased the Queen +of India was when you told her all about us?” + +Cyril muttered that it was all very well, and so it was. For when he +had told the tale of the Phœnix and the Carpet to the Ranee, it had +been only the truth—and all the truth that he had to tell. But now it +was not easy to tell a convincing story without mentioning the +Amulet—which, of course, it wouldn’t have done to mention—and without +owning that they were really living in London, about 2,500 years later +than the time they were talking in. + +Cyril took refuge in the tale of the Psammead and its wonderful power +of making wishes come true. The children had never been able to tell +anyone before, and Cyril was surprised to find that the spell which +kept them silent in London did not work here. “Something to do with our +being in the Past, I suppose,” he said to himself. + +“This is _most_ interesting,” said the Queen. “We must have this +Psammead for the banquet tonight. Its performance will be one of the +most popular turns in the whole programme. Where is it?” + +Anthea explained that they did not know; also why it was that they did +not know. + +“Oh, _that’s_ quite simple,” said the Queen, and everyone breathed a +deep sigh of relief as she said it. “Ritti-Marduk shall run down to the +gates and find out which guard your sister went home with.” + +“Might he”—Anthea’s voice was tremulous—“might he—would it interfere +with his meal-times, or anything like that, if he went _now?_” + +“Of course he shall go now. He may think himself lucky if he gets his +meals at any time,” said the Queen heartily, and clapped her hands. + +“May I send a letter?” asked Cyril, pulling out a red-backed penny +account-book, and feeling in his pockets for a stump of pencil that he +_knew_ was in one of them. + +“By all means. I’ll call my scribe.” + +“Oh, I can scribe right enough, thanks,” said Cyril, finding the pencil +and licking its point. He even had to bite the wood a little, for it +was very blunt. + +“Oh, you clever, clever boy!” said the Queen. “_do_ let me watch you do +it!” + +Cyril wrote on a leaf of the book—it was of rough, woolly paper, with +hairs that stuck out and would have got in his pen if he had been using +one, and ruled for accounts. + +“Hide IT most carefully before you come here,” he wrote, “and don’t +mention it—and destroy this letter. Everything is going A1. The Queen +is a fair treat. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” + +“What curious characters, and what a strange flat surface!” said the +Queen. “What have you inscribed?” + +“I’ve “scribed,” replied Cyril cautiously, “that you are fair, and +a—and like a—like a festival; and that she need not be afraid, and that +she is to come at once.” + +Ritti-Marduk, who had come in and had stood waiting while Cyril wrote, +his Babylonish eyes nearly starting out of his Babylonish head, now +took the letter, with some reluctance. + +“O Queen, live for ever! Is it a charm?” he timidly asked. “A strong +charm, most great lady?” + +“_Yes_,” said Robert, unexpectedly, “it _is_ a charm, but it won’t hurt +anyone until you’ve given it to Jane. And then she’ll destroy it, so +that it _can’t_ hurt anyone. It’s most awful strong!—as strong +as—Peppermint!” he ended abruptly. + +“I know not the god,” said Ritti-Marduk, bending timorously. + +“She’ll tear it up directly she gets it,” said Robert, “That’ll end the +charm. You needn’t be afraid if you go now.” + +Ritti-Marduk went, seeming only partly satisfied; and then the Queen +began to admire the penny account-book and the bit of pencil in so +marked and significant a way that Cyril felt he could not do less than +press them upon her as a gift. She ruffled the leaves delightedly. + +“What a wonderful substance!” she said. “And with this style you make +charms? Make a charm for me! Do you know,” her voice sank to a whisper, +“the names of the great ones of your own far country?” + +“Rather!” said Cyril, and hastily wrote the names of Alfred the Great, +Shakespeare, Nelson, Gordon, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr Rudyard Kipling, and +Mr Sherlock Holmes, while the Queen watched him with “unbaited breath”, +as Anthea said afterwards. + +She took the book and hid it reverently among the bright folds of her +gown. + +“You shall teach me later to say the great names,” she said. “And the +names of their Ministers—perhaps the great Nisroch is one of them?” + +“I don’t think so,” said Cyril. “Mr Campbell Bannerman’s Prime Minister +and Mr Burns a Minister, and so is the Archbishop of Canterbury, I +think, but I’m not sure—and Dr Parker was one, I know, and—” + +“No more,” said the Queen, putting her hands to her ears. “My head’s +going round with all those great names. You shall teach them to me +later—because of course you’ll make us a nice long visit now you have +come, won’t you? Now tell me—but no, I am quite tired out with your +being so clever. Besides, I’m sure you’d like _me_ to tell _you_ +something, wouldn’t you?” + +“Yes,” said Anthea. “I want to know how it is that the King has gone—” + +“Excuse me, but you should say ‘the King may-he-live-for-ever’,” said +the Queen gently. + +“I beg your pardon,” Anthea hastened to say—“the King +may-he-live-for-ever has gone to fetch home his fourteenth wife? I +don’t think even Bluebeard had as many as that. And, besides, he hasn’t +killed _you_ at any rate.” + +The Queen looked bewildered. + +“She means,” explained Robert, “that English kings only have one +wife—at least, Henry the Eighth had seven or eight, but not all at +once.” + +“In our country,” said the Queen scornfully, “a king would not reign a +day who had only one wife. No one would respect him, and quite right +too.” + +“Then are all the other thirteen alive?” asked Anthea. + +“Of course they are—poor mean-spirited things! I don’t associate with +them, of course, I am the Queen: they’re only the wives.” + +“I see,” said Anthea, gasping. + +“But oh, my dears,” the Queen went on, “such a to-do as there’s been +about this last wife! You never did! It really was _too_ funny. We +wanted an Egyptian princess. The King may-he-live-for-ever has got a +wife from most of the important nations, and he had set his heart on an +Egyptian one to complete his collection. Well, of course, to begin +with, we sent a handsome present of gold. The Egyptian king sent back +some horses—quite a few; he’s fearfully stingy!—and he said he liked +the gold very much, but what they were really short of was lapis +lazuli, so of course we sent him some. But by that time he’d begun to +use the gold to cover the beams of the roof of the Temple of the +Sun-God, and he hadn’t nearly enough to finish the job, so we sent some +more. And so it went on, oh, for years. You see each journey takes at +least six months. And at last we asked the hand of his daughter in +marriage.” + +“Yes, and then?” said Anthea, who wanted to get to the princess part of +the story. + +“Well, then,” said the Queen, “when he’d got everything out of us that +he could, and only given the meanest presents in return, he sent to say +he would esteem the honour of an alliance very highly, only +unfortunately he hadn’t any daughter, but he hoped one would be born +soon, and if so, she should certainly be reserved for the King of +Babylon!” + +“What a trick!” said Cyril. + +“Yes, wasn’t it? So then we said his sister would do, and then there +were more gifts and more journeys; and now at last the tiresome, +black-haired thing is coming, and the King may-he-live-for-ever has +gone seven days’ journey to meet her at Carchemish. And he’s gone in +his best chariot, the one inlaid with lapis lazuli and gold, with the +gold-plated wheels and onyx-studded hubs—much too great an honour in my +opinion. She’ll be here tonight; there’ll be a grand banquet to +celebrate her arrival. _She_ won’t be present, of course. She’ll be +having her baths and her anointings, and all that sort of thing. We +always clean our foreign brides very carefully. It takes two or three +weeks. Now it’s dinnertime, and you shall eat with me, for I can see +that you are of high rank.” + +She led them into a dark, cool hall, with many cushions on the floor. +On these they sat and low tables were brought—beautiful tables of +smooth, blue stone mounted in gold. On these, golden trays were placed; +but there were no knives, or forks, or spoons. The children expected +the Queen to call for them; but no. She just ate with her fingers, and +as the first dish was a great tray of boiled corn, and meat and raisins +all mixed up together, and melted fat poured all over the tray, it was +found difficult to follow her example with anything like what we are +used to think of as good table manners. There were stewed quinces +afterwards, and dates in syrup, and thick yellowy cream. It was the +kind of dinner you hardly ever get in Fitzroy Street. + +After dinner everybody went to sleep, even the children. + +The Queen awoke with a start. + +“Good gracious!” she cried, “what a time we’ve slept! I must rush off +and dress for the banquet. I shan’t have much more than time.” + +“Hasn’t Ritti-Marduk got back with our sister and the Psammead yet?” +Anthea asked. + +“I _quite_ forgot to ask. I’m sorry,” said the Queen. “And of course +they wouldn’t announce her unless I told them to, except during justice +hours. I expect she’s waiting outside. I’ll see.” + +Ritti-Marduk came in a moment later. + +“I regret,” he said, “that I have been unable to find your sister. The +beast she bears with her in a basket has bitten the child of the guard, +and your sister and the beast set out to come to you. The police say +they have a clue. No doubt we shall have news of her in a few weeks.” +He bowed and withdrew. + +The horror of this threefold loss—Jane, the Psammead, and the +Amulet—gave the children something to talk about while the Queen was +dressing. I shall not report their conversation; it was very gloomy. +Everyone repeated himself several times, and the discussion ended in +each of them blaming the other two for having let Jane go. You know the +sort of talk it was, don’t you? At last Cyril said— + +“After all, she’s with the Psammead, so _she’s_ all right. The Psammead +is jolly careful of itself too. And it isn’t as if we were in any +danger. Let’s try to buck up and enjoy the banquet.” + +They did enjoy the banquet. They had a beautiful bath, which was +delicious, were heavily oiled all over, including their hair, and that +was most unpleasant. Then, they dressed again and were presented to the +King, who was most affable. The banquet was long; there were all sorts +of nice things to eat, and everybody seemed to eat and drink a good +deal. Everyone lay on cushions and couches, ladies on one side and +gentlemen on the other; and after the eating was done each lady went +and sat by some gentleman, who seemed to be her sweetheart or her +husband, for they were very affectionate to each other. The Court +dresses had gold threads woven in them, very bright and beautiful. + +The middle of the room was left clear, and different people came and +did amusing things. There were conjurers and jugglers and +snake-charmers, which last Anthea did not like at all. + +When it got dark torches were lighted. Cedar splinters dipped in oil +blazed in copper dishes set high on poles. + +Then there was a dancer, who hardly danced at all, only just struck +attitudes. She had hardly any clothes, and was not at all pretty. The +children were rather bored by her, but everyone else was delighted, +including the King. + +“By the beard of Nimrod!” he cried, “ask what you like girl, and you +shall have it!” + +“I want nothing,” said the dancer; “the honour of having pleased the +King may-he-live-for-ever is reward enough for me.” + +And the King was so pleased with this modest and sensible reply that he +gave her the gold collar off his own neck. + +“I say!” said Cyril, awed by the magnificence of the gift. + +“It’s all right,” whispered the Queen, “it’s not his best collar by any +means. We always keep a stock of cheap jewellery for these occasions. +And now—you promised to sing us something. Would you like my minstrels +to accompany you?” + +“No, thank you,” said Anthea quickly. The minstrels had been playing +off and on all the time, and their music reminded Anthea of the band +she and the others had once had on the fifth of November—with penny +horns, a tin whistle, a tea-tray, the tongs, a policeman’s rattle, and +a toy drum. They had enjoyed this band very much at the time. But it +was quite different when someone else was making the same kind of +music. Anthea understood now that Father had not been really heartless +and unreasonable when he had told them to stop that infuriating din. + +“What shall we sing?” Cyril was asking. + +“Sweet and low?” suggested Anthea. + +“Too soft—I vote for ‘Who will o’er the downs’. Now then—one, two, +three. + +“Oh, who will o’er the downs so free, + Oh, who will with me ride, +Oh, who will up and follow me, + To win a blooming bride? + +Her father he has locked the door, + Her mother keeps the key; +But neither bolt nor bar shall keep + My own true love from me.” + + +Jane, the alto, was missing, and Robert, unlike the mother of the lady +in the song, never could “keep the key”, but the song, even so, was +sufficiently unlike anything any of them had ever heard to rouse the +Babylonian Court to the wildest enthusiasm. + +“More, more,” cried the King; “by my beard, this savage music is a new +thing. Sing again!” + +So they sang: + +“I saw her bower at twilight gray, + ’Twas guarded safe and sure. +I saw her bower at break of day, + ’Twas guarded then no more. + +The varlets they were all asleep, + And there was none to see +The greeting fair that passed there + Between my love and me.” + + +Shouts of applause greeted the ending of the verse, and the King would +not be satisfied till they had sung all their part-songs (they only +knew three) twice over, and ended up with “Men of Harlech” in unison. +Then the King stood up in his royal robes with his high, narrow crown +on his head and shouted— + +“By the beak of Nisroch, ask what you will, strangers from the land +where the sun never sets!” + +“We ought to say it’s enough honour, like the dancer did,” whispered +Anthea. + +“No, let’s ask for _It_,” said Robert. + +“No, no, I’m sure the other’s manners,” said Anthea. But Robert, who +was excited by the music, and the flaring torches, and the applause and +the opportunity, spoke up before the others could stop him. + +“Give us the half of the Amulet that has on it the name UR HEKAU +SETCHEH,” he said, adding as an afterthought, “O King, live-for-ever.” + +As he spoke the great name those in the pillared hall fell on their +faces, and lay still. All but the Queen who crouched amid her cushions +with her head in her hands, and the King, who stood upright, perfectly +still, like the statue of a king in stone. It was only for a moment +though. Then his great voice thundered out— + +“Guard, seize them!” + +Instantly, from nowhere as it seemed, sprang eight soldiers in bright +armour inlaid with gold, and tunics of red and white. Very splendid +they were, and very alarming. + +“Impious and sacrilegious wretches!” shouted the King. “To the dungeons +with them! We will find a way, tomorrow, to make them speak. For +without doubt they can tell us where to find the lost half of _It_.” + +A wall of scarlet and white and steel and gold closed up round the +children and hurried them away among the many pillars of the great +hall. As they went they heard the voices of the courtiers loud in +horror. + +“You’ve done it this time,” said Cyril with extreme bitterness. + +“Oh, it will come right. It _must_. It always does,” said Anthea +desperately. + +They could not see where they were going, because the guard surrounded +them so closely, but the ground under their feet, smooth marble at +first, grew rougher like stone, then it was loose earth and sand, and +they felt the night air. Then there was more stone, and steps down. + +“It’s my belief we really _are_ going to the deepest dungeon below the +castle moat this time,” said Cyril. + +And they were. At least it was not below a moat, but below the river +Euphrates, which was just as bad if not worse. In a most unpleasant +place it was. Dark, very, very damp, and with an odd, musty smell +rather like the shells of oysters. There was a torch—that is to say, a +copper basket on a high stick with oiled wood burning in it. By its +light the children saw that the walls were green, and that trickles of +water ran down them and dripped from the roof. There were things on the +floor that looked like newts, and in the dark corners creepy, shiny +things moved sluggishly, uneasily, horribly. + +Robert’s heart sank right into those really reliable boots of his. +Anthea and Cyril each had a private struggle with that inside +disagreeableness which is part of all of us, and which is sometimes +called the Old Adam—and both were victors. Neither of them said to +Robert (and both tried hard not even to think it), “This is _your_ +doing.” Anthea had the additional temptation to add, “I told you so.” +And she resisted it successfully. + +“Sacrilege, and impious cheek,” said the captain of the guard to the +gaoler. “To be kept during the King’s pleasure. I expect he means to +get some pleasure out of them tomorrow! He’ll tickle them up!” + +“Poor little kids,” said the gaoler. + +“Oh, yes,” said the captain. “I’ve got kids of my own too. But it +doesn’t do to let domestic sentiment interfere with one’s public +duties. Good night.” + +The soldiers tramped heavily off in their white and red and steel and +gold. The gaoler, with a bunch of big keys in his hand, stood looking +pityingly at the children. He shook his head twice and went out. + +“Courage!” said Anthea. “I know it will be all right. It’s only a dream +_really_, you know. It _must_ be! I don’t believe about time being only +a something or other of thought. It _is_ a dream, and we’re bound to +wake up all right and safe.” + +“Humph,” said Cyril bitterly. And Robert suddenly said— + +“It’s all my doing. If it really is all up do please not keep a down on +me about it, and tell Father—Oh, I forgot.” + +What he had forgotten was that his father was 3,000 miles and 5,000 or +more years away from him. + +“All right, Bobs, old man,” said Cyril; and Anthea got hold of Robert’s +hand and squeezed it. + +Then the gaoler came back with a platter of hard, flat cakes made of +coarse grain, very different from the cream-and-juicy-date feasts of +the palace; also a pitcher of water. + +“There,” he said. + +“Oh, thank you so very much. You _are_ kind,” said Anthea feverishly. + +“Go to sleep,” said the gaoler, pointing to a heap of straw in a +corner; “tomorrow comes soon enough.” + +“Oh, dear Mr Gaoler,” said Anthea, “whatever will they do to us +tomorrow?” + +“They’ll try to make you tell things,” said the gaoler grimly, “and my +advice is if you’ve nothing to tell, make up something. Then perhaps +they’ll sell you to the Northern nations. Regular savages _they_ are. +Good night.” + +“Good night,” said three trembling voices, which their owners strove in +vain to render firm. Then he went out, and the three were left alone in +the damp, dim vault. + +“I know the light won’t last long,” said Cyril, looking at the +flickering brazier. + +“Is it any good, do you think, calling on the name when we haven’t got +the charm?” suggested Anthea. + +“I shouldn’t think so. But we might try.” + +So they tried. But the blank silence of the damp dungeon remained +unchanged. + +“What was the name the Queen said?” asked Cyril suddenly. +“Nisbeth—Nesbit—something? You know, the slave of the great names?” + +“Wait a sec,” said Robert, “though I don’t know why you want it. +Nusroch—Nisrock—Nisroch—that’s it.” + +Then Anthea pulled herself together. All her muscles tightened, and the +muscles of her mind and soul, if you can call them that, tightened too. + +“UR HEKAU SETCHEH,” she cried in a fervent voice. “Oh, Nisroch, servant +of the Great Ones, come and help us!” + +There was a waiting silence. Then a cold, blue light awoke in the +corner where the straw was—and in the light they saw coming towards +them a strange and terrible figure. I won’t try to describe it, because +the drawing shows it, exactly as it was, and exactly as the old +Babylonians carved it on their stones, so that you can see it in our +own British Museum at this day. I will just say that it had eagle’s +wings and an eagle’s head and the body of a man. + +It came towards them, strong and unspeakably horrible. + +“Oh, go away,” cried Anthea; but Cyril cried, “No; stay!” + +The creature hesitated, then bowed low before them on the damp floor of +the dungeon. + +“Speak,” it said, in a harsh, grating voice like large rusty keys being +turned in locks. “The servant of the Great Ones is _your_ servant. What +is your need that you call on the name of Nisroch?” + +“We want to go home,” said Robert. + +“No, no,” cried Anthea; “we want to be where Jane is.” + +Nisroch raised his great arm and pointed at the wall of the dungeon. +And, as he pointed, the wall disappeared, and instead of the damp, +green, rocky surface, there shone and glowed a room with rich hangings +of red silk embroidered with golden water-lilies, with cushioned +couches and great mirrors of polished steel; and in it was the Queen, +and before her, on a red pillow, sat the Psammead, its fur hunched up +in an irritated, discontented way. On a blue-covered couch lay Jane +fast asleep. + +“Walk forward without fear,” said Nisroch. “Is there aught else that +the Servant of the great Name can do for those who speak that name?” + +“No—oh, _no_,” said Cyril. “It’s all right now. Thanks ever so.” + +“You are a dear,” cried Anthea, not in the least knowing what she was +saying. “Oh, thank you thank you. But _do_ go _now!_” + +She caught the hand of the creature, and it was cold and hard in hers, +like a hand of stone. + +“Go forward,” said Nisroch. And they went. + +“Oh, my good gracious,” said the Queen as they stood before her. “How +did you get here? I _knew_ you were magic. I meant to let you out the +first thing in the morning, if I could slip away—but thanks be to +Dagon, you’ve managed it for yourselves. You must get away. I’ll wake +my chief lady and she shall call Ritti-Marduk, and he’ll let you out +the back way, and—” + +“Don’t rouse anybody for goodness’ sake,” said Anthea, “except Jane, +and I’ll rouse her.” + +She shook Jane with energy, and Jane slowly awoke. + +“Ritti-Marduk brought them in hours ago, really,” said the Queen, “but +I wanted to have the Psammead all to myself for a bit. You’ll excuse +the little natural deception?—it’s part of the Babylonish character, +don’t you know? But I don’t want anything to happen to you. Do let me +rouse someone.” + +“No, no, no,” said Anthea with desperate earnestness. She thought she +knew enough of what the Babylonians were like when they were roused. +“We can go by our own magic. And you will tell the King it wasn’t the +gaoler’s fault. It was Nisroch.” + +“Nisroch!” echoed the Queen. “You are indeed magicians.” + +Jane sat up, blinking stupidly. + +“Hold _It_ up, and say the word,” cried Cyril, catching up the +Psammead, which mechanically bit him, but only very slightly. + +“Which is the East?” asked Jane. + +“Behind me,” said the Queen. “Why?” + +“Ur Hekau Setcheh,” said Jane sleepily, and held up the charm. + +And there they all were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street. + +“Jane,” cried Cyril with great presence of mind, “go and get the plate +of sand down for the Psammead.” + +Jane went. + +“Look here!” he said quickly, as the sound of her boots grew less loud +on the stairs, “don’t let’s tell her about the dungeon and all that. +It’ll only frighten her so that she’ll never want to go anywhere else.” + +“Righto!” said Cyril; but Anthea felt that she could not have said a +word to save her life. + +“Why did you want to come back in such a hurry?” asked Jane, returning +with the plate of sand. “It was awfully jolly in Babylon, I think! I +liked it no end.” + +“Oh, yes,” said Cyril carelessly. “It was jolly enough, of course, but +I thought we’d been there long enough. Mother always says you oughtn’t +to wear out your welcome!” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE QUEEN IN LONDON + + +“Now tell us what happened to you,” said Cyril to Jane, when he and the +others had told her all about the Queen’s talk and the banquet, and the +variety entertainment, carefully stopping short before the beginning of +the dungeon part of the story. + +“It wasn’t much good going,” said Jane, “if you didn’t even try to get +the Amulet.” + +“We found out it was no go,” said Cyril; “it’s not to be got in +Babylon. It was lost before that. We’ll go to some other jolly friendly +place, where everyone is kind and pleasant, and look for it there. Now +tell us about your part.” + +“Oh,” said Jane, “the Queen’s man with the smooth face—what was his +name?” + +“Ritti-Marduk,” said Cyril. + +“Yes,” said Jane, “Ritti-Marduk, he came for me just after the Psammead +had bitten the guard-of-the-gate’s wife’s little boy, and he took me to +the Palace. And we had supper with the new little Queen from Egypt. She +is a dear—not much older than you. She told me heaps about Egypt. And +we played ball after supper. And then the Babylon Queen sent for me. I +like her too. And she talked to the Psammead and I went to sleep. And +then you woke me up. That’s all.” + +The Psammead, roused from its sound sleep, told the same story. + +“But,” it added, “what possessed you to tell that Queen that I could +give wishes? I sometimes think you were born without even the most +rudimentary imitation of brains.” + +The children did not know the meaning of rudimentary, but it sounded a +rude, insulting word. + +“I don’t see that we did any harm,” said Cyril sulkily. + +“Oh, no,” said the Psammead with withering irony, “not at all! Of +course not! Quite the contrary! Exactly so! Only she happened to wish +that she might soon find herself in your country. And soon may mean any +moment.” + +“Then it’s your fault,” said Robert, “because you might just as well +have made ‘soon’ mean some moment next year or next century.” + +“That’s where you, as so often happens, make the mistake,” rejoined the +Sand-fairy. “_I_ couldn’t mean anything but what _she_ meant by ‘soon’. +It wasn’t my wish. And what she meant was the next time the King +happens to go out lion hunting. So she’ll have a whole day, and perhaps +two, to do as she wishes with. She doesn’t know about time only being a +mode of thought.” + +“Well,” said Cyril, with a sigh of resignation, “we must do what we can +to give her a good time. She was jolly decent to us. I say, suppose we +were to go to St James’s Park after dinner and feed those ducks that we +never did feed. After all that Babylon and all those years ago, I feel +as if I should like to see something _real_, and _now_. You’ll come, +Psammead?” + +“Where’s my priceless woven basket of sacred rushes?” asked the +Psammead morosely. “I can’t go out with nothing on. And I won’t, what’s +more.” + +And then everybody remembered with pain that the bass bag had, in the +hurry of departure from Babylon, not been remembered. + +“But it’s not so extra precious,” said Robert hastily. “You can get +them given to you for nothing if you buy fish in Farringdon Market.” + +“Oh,” said the Psammead very crossly indeed, “so you presume on my +sublime indifference to the things of this disgusting modern world, to +fob me off with a travelling equipage that costs you nothing. Very +well, I shall go to sand. Please don’t wake me.” + +And it went then and there to sand, which, as you know, meant to bed. +The boys went to St James’s Park to feed the ducks, but they went +alone. + +Anthea and Jane sat sewing all the afternoon. They cut off half a yard +from each of their best green Liberty sashes. A towel cut in two formed +a lining; and they sat and sewed and sewed and sewed. What they were +making was a bag for the Psammead. Each worked at a half of the bag. +Jane’s half had four-leaved shamrocks embroidered on it. They were the +only things she could do (because she had been taught how at school, +and, fortunately, some of the silk she had been taught with was left +over). And even so, Anthea had to draw the pattern for her. Anthea’s +side of the bag had letters on it—worked hastily but affectionately in +chain stitch. They were something like this: + +[Illustration] + +She would have put “travelling carriage”, but she made the letters too +big, so there was no room. The bag was made _into_ a bag with old +Nurse’s sewing machine, and the strings of it were Anthea’s and Jane’s +best red hair ribbons. + +At tea-time, when the boys had come home with a most unfavourable +report of the St James’s Park ducks, Anthea ventured to awaken the +Psammead, and to show it its new travelling bag. + +“Humph,” it said, sniffing a little contemptuously, yet at the same +time affectionately, “it’s not so dusty.” + +The Psammead seemed to pick up very easily the kind of things that +people said nowadays. For a creature that had in its time associated +with Megatheriums and Pterodactyls, its quickness was really wonderful. + +“It’s more worthy of me,” it said, “than the kind of bag that’s given +away with a pound of plaice. When do you propose to take me out in it?” + +“I should like a rest from taking you or us anywhere,” said Cyril. But +Jane said— + +“I want to go to Egypt. I did like that Egyptian Princess that came to +marry the King in Babylon. She told me about the larks they have in +Egypt. And the cats. Do let’s go there. And I told her what the bird +things on the Amulet were like. And she said it was Egyptian writing.” + +The others exchanged looks of silent rejoicing at the thought of their +cleverness in having concealed from Jane the terrors they had suffered +in the dungeon below the Euphrates. + +“Egypt’s so nice too,” Jane went on, “because of Doctor Brewer’s +Scripture History. I would like to go there when Joseph was dreaming +those curious dreams, or when Moses was doing wonderful things with +snakes and sticks.” + +“I don’t care about snakes,” said Anthea shuddering. + +“Well, we needn’t be in at that part, but Babylon was lovely! We had +cream and sweet, sticky stuff. And I expect Egypt’s the same.” + +There was a good deal of discussion, but it all ended in everybody’s +agreeing to Jane’s idea. And next morning directly after breakfast +(which was kippers and very nice) the Psammead was invited to get into +his travelling carriage. + +The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, like +that of a cat when you want to nurse it, and its ideas are not the same +as yours, old Nurse came in. + +“Well, chickies,” she said, “are you feeling very dull?” + +“Oh, no, Nurse dear,” said Anthea; “we’re having a lovely time. We’re +just going off to see some old ancient relics.” + +“Ah,” said old Nurse, “the Royal Academy, I suppose? Don’t go wasting +your money too reckless, that’s all.” + +She cleared away the kipper bones and the tea-things, and when she had +swept up the crumbs and removed the cloth, the Amulet was held up and +the order given—just as Duchesses (and other people) give it to their +coachmen. + +“To Egypt, please!” said Anthea, when Cyril had uttered the wonderful +Name of Power. + +“When Moses was there,” added Jane. + +And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street dining-room, the Amulet grew +big, and it was an arch, and through it they saw a blue, blue sky and a +running river. + +“No, stop!” said Cyril, and pulled down Jane’s hand with the Amulet in +it. + +“What silly cuckoos we all are,” he said. “Of course we can’t go. We +daren’t leave home for a single minute now, for fear that minute should +be _the_ minute.” + +“What minute be _what_ minute?” asked Jane impatiently, trying to get +her hand away from Cyril. + +“The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,” said Cyril. And then +everyone saw it. + +For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful stream. The +children could never go out all at once, because they never knew when +the King of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave his Queen free +to pay them that surprise visit to which she was, without doubt, +eagerly looking forward. + +So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in. + +The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but for +the new interest taken in them by the learned gentleman. + +He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of purple +and gold beads. + +“I saw one like that,” she said, “in—” + +“In the British Museum, perhaps?” + +“I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,” said Anthea +cautiously. + +“A pretty fancy,” said the learned gentleman, “and quite correct too, +because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from Babylon.” + +The other three were all out that day. The boys had been going to the +Zoo, and Jane had said so plaintively, “I’m sure I am fonder of +rhinoceroses than either of you are,” that Anthea had told her to run +along then. And she had run, catching the boys before that part of the +road where Fitzroy Street suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square. + +“I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,” said Anthea. “I do +have such interesting dreams about it—at least, not dreams exactly, but +quite as wonderful.” + +“Do sit down and tell me,” said he. So she sat down and told. And he +asked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as well as she +could. + +“Wonderful—wonderful!” he said at last. “One’s heard of +thought-transference, but I never thought _I_ had any power of that +sort. Yet it must be that, and very bad for _you_, I should think. +Doesn’t your head ache very much?” + +He suddenly put a cold, thin hand on her forehead. + +“No thank you, not at all,” said she. + +“I assure you it is not done intentionally,” he went on. “Of course I +know a good deal about Babylon, and I unconsciously communicate it to +you; you’ve heard of thought-reading, but some of the things you say, I +don’t understand; they never enter my head, and yet they’re so +astoundingly probable.” + +“It’s all right,” said Anthea reassuringly. “_I_ understand. And don’t +worry. It’s all quite simple really.” + +It was not quite so simple when Anthea, having heard the others come +in, went down, and before she had had time to ask how they had liked +the Zoo, heard a noise outside, compared to which the wild beasts’ +noises were gentle as singing birds. + +“Good gracious!” cried Anthea, “what’s that?” + +The loud hum of many voices came through the open window. Words could +be distinguished. + +“’Ere’s a guy!” + +“This ain’t November. That ain’t no guy. It’s a ballet lady, that’s +what it is.” + +“Not it—it’s a bloomin’ looney, I tell you.” + +Then came a clear voice that they knew. + +“Retire, slaves!” it said. + +“What’s she a saying of?” cried a dozen voices. + +“Some blamed foreign lingo,” one voice replied. + +The children rushed to the door. A crowd was on the road and pavement. + +In the middle of the crowd, plainly to be seen from the top of the +steps, were the beautiful face and bright veil of the Babylonian Queen. + +“Jimminy!” cried Robert, and ran down the steps, “here she is!” + +“Here!” he cried, “look out—let the lady pass. She’s a friend of ours, +coming to see us.” + +“Nice friend for a respectable house,” snorted a fat woman with marrows +on a handcart. + +All the same the crowd made way a little. The Queen met Robert on the +pavement, and Cyril joined them, the Psammead bag still on his arm. + +“Here,” he whispered; “here’s the Psammead; you can get wishes.” + +“_I_ wish you’d come in a different dress, if you _had_ to come,” said +Robert; “but it’s no use my wishing anything.” + +“No,” said the Queen. “I wish I was dressed—no, I don’t—I wish _they_ +were dressed properly, then they wouldn’t be so silly.” + +The Psammead blew itself out till the bag was a very tight fit for it; +and suddenly every man, woman, and child in that crowd felt that it had +not enough clothes on. For, of course, the Queen’s idea of proper dress +was the dress that had been proper for the working-classes 3,000 years +ago in Babylon—and there was not much of it. + +“Lawky me!” said the marrow-selling woman, “whatever could a-took me to +come out this figure?” and she wheeled her cart away very quickly +indeed. + +“Someone’s made a pretty guy of you—talk of guys,” said a man who sold +bootlaces. + +“Well, don’t you talk,” said the man next to him. “Look at your own +silly legs; and where’s your boots?” + +“I never come out like this, I’ll take my sacred,” said the +bootlace-seller. “I wasn’t quite myself last night, I’ll own, but not +to dress up like a circus.” + +The crowd was all talking at once, and getting rather angry. But no one +seemed to think of blaming the Queen. + +Anthea bounded down the steps and pulled her up; the others followed, +and the door was shut. + +“Blowed if I can make it out!” they heard. “I’m off home, I am.” + +And the crowd, coming slowly to the same mind, dispersed, followed by +another crowd of persons who were not dressed in what the Queen thought +was the proper way. + +“We shall have the police here directly,” said Anthea in the tones of +despair. “Oh, why did you come dressed like that?” + +The Queen leaned against the arm of the horse-hair sofa. + +“How else can a queen dress I should like to know?” she questioned. + +“Our Queen wears things like other people,” said Cyril. + +“Well, I don’t. And I must say,” she remarked in an injured tone, “that +you don’t seem very glad to see me now I _have_ come. But perhaps it’s +the surprise that makes you behave like this. Yet you ought to be used +to surprises. The way you vanished! I shall never forget it. The best +magic I’ve ever seen. How did you do it?” + +“Oh, never mind about that now,” said Robert. “You see you’ve gone and +upset all those people, and I expect they’ll fetch the police. And we +don’t want to see you collared and put in prison.” + +“You can’t put queens in prison,” she said loftily. + +“Oh, can’t you?” said Cyril. “We cut off a king’s head here once.” + +“In this miserable room? How frightfully interesting.” + +“No, no, not in this room; in history.” + +“Oh, in _that_,” said the Queen disparagingly. “I thought you’d done it +with your own hands.” + +The girls shuddered. + +“What a hideous city yours is,” the Queen went on pleasantly, “and what +horrid, ignorant people. Do you know they actually can’t understand a +single word I say.” + +“Can you understand them?” asked Jane. + +“Of course not; they speak some vulgar, Northern dialect. I can +understand _you_ quite well.” + +I really am not going to explain _again_ how it was that the children +could understand other languages than their own so thoroughly, and talk +them, too, so that it felt and sounded (to them) just as though they +were talking English. + +“Well,” said Cyril bluntly, “now you’ve seen just how horrid it is, +don’t you think you might as well go home again?” + +“Why, I’ve seen simply nothing yet,” said the Queen, arranging her +starry veil. “I wished to be at your door, and I was. Now I must go and +see your King and Queen.” + +“Nobody’s allowed to,” said Anthea in haste; “but look here, we’ll take +you and show you anything you’d like to see—anything you _can_ see,” +she added kindly, because she remembered how nice the Queen had been to +them in Babylon, even if she had been a little deceitful in the matter +of Jane and Psammead. + +“There’s the Museum,” said Cyril hopefully; “there are lots of things +from your country there. If only we could disguise you a little.” + +“I know,” said Anthea suddenly. “Mother’s old theatre cloak, and there +are a lot of her old hats in the big box.” + +The blue silk, lace-trimmed cloak did indeed hide some of the Queen’s +startling splendours, but the hat fitted very badly. It had pink roses +in it; and there was something about the coat or the hat or the Queen, +that made her look somehow not very respectable. + +“Oh, never mind,” said Anthea, when Cyril whispered this. “The thing is +to get her out before Nurse has finished her forty winks. I should +think she’s about got to the thirty-ninth wink by now.” + +“Come on then,” said Robert. “You know how dangerous it is. Let’s make +haste into the Museum. If any of those people you made guys of do fetch +the police, they won’t think of looking for you there.” + +The blue silk coat and the pink-rosed hat attracted almost as much +attention as the royal costume had done; and the children were +uncommonly glad to get out of the noisy streets into the grey quiet of +the Museum. + +“Parcels and umbrellas to be left here,” said a man at the counter. + +The party had no umbrellas, and the only parcel was the bag containing +the Psammead, which the Queen had insisted should be brought. + +“_I’m_ not going to be left,” said the Psammead softly, “so don’t you +think it.” + +“I’ll wait outside with you,” said Anthea hastily, and went to sit on +the seat near the drinking fountain. + +“Don’t sit so near that nasty fountain,” said the creature crossly; “I +might get splashed.” + +Anthea obediently moved to another seat and waited. Indeed she waited, +and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. The Psammead dropped +into an uneasy slumber. Anthea had long ceased to watch the swing-door +that always let out the wrong person, and she was herself almost +asleep, and still the others did not come back. + +It was quite a start when Anthea suddenly realized that they _had_ come +back, and that they were not alone. Behind them was quite a crowd of +men in uniform, and several gentlemen were there. Everyone seemed very +angry. + +“Now go,” said the nicest of the angry gentlemen. “Take the poor, +demented thing home and tell your parents she ought to be properly +looked after.” + +“If you can’t get her to go we must send for the police,” said the +nastiest gentleman. + +“But we don’t wish to use harsh measures,” added the nice one, who was +really very nice indeed, and seemed to be over all the others. + +“May I speak to my sister a moment first?” asked Robert. + +The nicest gentleman nodded, and the officials stood round the Queen, +the others forming a sort of guard while Robert crossed over to Anthea. + +“Everything you can think of,” he replied to Anthea’s glance of +inquiry. “Kicked up the most frightful shine in there. Said those +necklaces and earrings and things in the glass cases were all +hers—would have them out of the cases. Tried to break the glass—she did +break one bit! Everybody in the place has been at her. No good. I only +got her out by telling her that was the place where they cut queens’ +heads off.” + +“Oh, Bobs, what a whacker!” + +“You’d have told a whackinger one to get her out. Besides, it wasn’t. I +meant _mummy_ queens. How do you know they don’t cut off mummies’ heads +to see how the embalming is done? What I want to say is, can’t you get +her to go with you quietly?” + +“I’ll try,” said Anthea, and went up to the Queen. + +“Do come home,” she said; “the learned gentleman in our house has a +much nicer necklace than anything they’ve got here. Come and see it.” + +The Queen nodded. + +“You see,” said the nastiest gentleman, “she does understand English.” + +“I was talking Babylonian, I think,” said Anthea bashfully. + +“My good child,” said the nice gentleman, “what you’re talking is not +Babylonian, but nonsense. You just go home _at once_, and tell your +parents exactly what has happened.” + +Anthea took the Queen’s hand and gently pulled her away. The other +children followed, and the black crowd of angry gentlemen stood on the +steps watching them. It was when the little party of disgraced +children, with the Queen who had disgraced them, had reached the middle +of the courtyard that her eyes fell on the bag where the Psammead was. +She stopped short. + +“I wish,” she said, very loud and clear, “that all those Babylonian +things would come out to me here—slowly, so that those dogs and slaves +can see the working of the great Queen’s magic.” + +“Oh, you _are_ a tiresome woman,” said the Psammead in its bag, but it +puffed itself out. + +Next moment there was a crash. The glass swing doors and all their +framework were smashed suddenly and completely. The crowd of angry +gentlemen sprang aside when they saw what had done this. But the +nastiest of them was not quick enough, and he was roughly pushed out of +the way by an enormous stone bull that was floating steadily through +the door. It came and stood beside the Queen in the middle of the +courtyard. + +It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved stone, +bricks, helmets, tools, weapons, fetters, wine-jars, bowls, bottles, +vases, jugs, saucers, seals, and the round long things, something like +rolling pins with marks on them like the print of little bird-feet, +necklaces, collars, rings, armlets, earrings—heaps and heaps and heaps +of things, far more than anyone had time to count, or even to see +distinctly. + +All the angry gentlemen had abruptly sat down on the Museum steps +except the nice one. He stood with his hands in his pockets just as +though he was quite used to seeing great stone bulls and all sorts of +small Babylonish objects float out into the Museum yard. But he sent a +man to close the big iron gates. + +A journalist, who was just leaving the museum, spoke to Robert as he +passed. + +“Theosophy, I suppose?” he said. “Is she Mrs Besant?” + +“_Yes_,” said Robert recklessly. + +The journalist passed through the gates just before they were shut. He +rushed off to Fleet Street, and his paper got out a new edition within +half an hour. + +MRS BESANT AND THEOSOPHY + +IMPERTINENT MIRACLE AT THE +BRITISH MUSEUM. + + +People saw it in fat, black letters on the boards carried by the +sellers of newspapers. Some few people who had nothing better to do +went down to the Museum on the tops of omnibuses. But by the time they +got there there was nothing to be seen. For the Babylonian Queen had +suddenly seen the closed gates, had felt the threat of them, and had +said— + +“I wish we were in your house.” + +And, of course, instantly they were. + +The Psammead was furious. + +“Look here,” it said, “they’ll come after you, and they’ll find _me_. +There’ll be a National Cage built for me at Westminster, and I shall +have to work at politics. Why wouldn’t you leave the things in their +places?” + +“What a temper you have, haven’t you?” said the Queen serenely. “I wish +all the things were back in their places. Will _that_ do for you?” + +The Psammead swelled and shrank and spoke very angrily. + +“I can’t refuse to give your wishes,” it said, “but I can Bite. And I +will if this goes on. Now then.” + +“Ah, don’t,” whispered Anthea close to its bristling ear; “it’s +dreadful for us too. Don’t _you_ desert us. Perhaps she’ll wish herself +at home again soon.” + +“Not she,” said the Psammead a little less crossly. + +“Take me to see your City,” said the Queen. + +The children looked at each other. + +“If we had some money we could take her about in a cab. People wouldn’t +notice her so much then. But we haven’t.” + +“Sell this,” said the Queen, taking a ring from her finger. + +“They’d only think we’d stolen it,” said Cyril bitterly, “and put us in +prison.” + +“All roads lead to prison with you, it seems,” said the Queen. + +“The learned gentleman!” said Anthea, and ran up to him with the ring +in her hand. + +“Look here,” she said, “will you buy this for a pound?” + +“Oh!” he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring into his +hand. + +“It’s my very own,” said Anthea; “it was given to me to sell.” + +“I’ll lend you a pound,” said the learned gentleman, “with pleasure; +and I’ll take care of the ring for you. Who did you say gave it to +you?” + +“We call her,” said Anthea carefully, “the Queen of Babylon.” + +“Is it a game?” he asked hopefully. + +“It’ll be a pretty game if I don’t get the money to pay for cabs for +her,” said Anthea. + +“I sometimes think,” he said slowly, “that I am becoming insane, or +that—” + +“Or that I am; but I’m not, and you’re not, and she’s not.” + +“Does she _say_ that she’s the Queen of Babylon?” he uneasily asked. + +“Yes,” said Anthea recklessly. + +“This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,” he +said. “I suppose I have unconsciously influenced _her_, too. I never +thought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. Horrible! +There are more things in heaven and earth—” + +“Yes,” said Anthea, “heaps more. And the pound is the thing _I_ want +more than anything on earth.” + +He ran his fingers through his thin hair. + +“This thought-transference!” he said. “It’s undoubtedly a Babylonian +ring—or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have hypnotized myself. I will +see a doctor the moment I have corrected the last proofs of my book.” + +“Yes, do!” said Anthea, “and thank you so very much.” + +She took the sovereign and ran down to the others. + +And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylon +beheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thought +uninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament little +better. But she liked the Tower, and the River, and the ships filled +her with wonder and delight. + +“But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and +neglected they seem,” she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End +Road. + +“They aren’t slaves; they’re working-people,” said Jane. + +“Of course they’re working. That’s what slaves are. Don’t you tell me. +Do you suppose I don’t know a slave’s face when I see it? Why don’t +their masters see that they’re better fed and better clothed? Tell me +in three words.” + +No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little +difficult to explain in three words even if you understand it—which the +children didn’t. + +“You’ll have a revolt of your slaves if you’re not careful,” said the +Queen. + +“Oh, no,” said Cyril; “you see they have votes—that makes them safe not +to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so.” + +“What is this vote?” asked the Queen. “Is it a charm? What do they do +with it?” + +“I don’t know,” said the harassed Cyril; “it’s just a vote, that’s all! +They don’t do anything particular with it.” + +“I see,” said the Queen; “a sort of plaything. Well, I wish that all +these slaves may have in their hands this moment their fill of their +favourite meat and drink.” + +Instantly all the people in the Mile End Road, and in all the other +streets where poor people live, found their hands full of things to eat +and drink. From the cab window could be seen persons carrying every +kind of food, and bottles and cans as well. Roast meat, fowls, red +lobsters, great yellowy crabs, fried fish, boiled pork, beef-steak +puddings, baked onions, mutton pies; most of the young people had +oranges and sweets and cake. It made an enormous change in the look of +the Mile End Road—brightened it up, so to speak, and brightened up, +more than you can possibly imagine, the faces of the people. + +“Makes a difference, doesn’t it?” said the Queen. + +“That’s the best wish you’ve had yet,” said Jane with cordial approval. + +Just by the Bank the cabman stopped. + +“I ain’t agoin’ to drive you no further,” he said. “Out you gets.” + +They got out rather unwillingly. + +“I wants my tea,” he said; and they saw that on the box of the cab was +a mound of cabbage, with pork chops and apple sauce, a duck, and a +spotted currant pudding. Also a large can. + +“You pay me my fare,” he said threateningly, and looked down at the +mound, muttering again about his tea. + +“We’ll take another cab,” said Cyril with dignity. “Give me change for +a sovereign, if you please.” + +But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice character. He +took the sovereign, whipped up his horse, and disappeared in the stream +of cabs and omnibuses and wagons, without giving them any change at +all. + +Already a little crowd was collecting round the party. + +“Come on,” said Robert, leading the wrong way. + +The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where many +gentlemen in black coats and without hats were standing about on the +pavement talking very loudly. + +“How ugly their clothes are,” said the Queen of Babylon. “They’d be +rather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed decently, +especially the ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I wish they +were dressed like the Babylonians of my court.” + +And of course, it was so. + +The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every man +in Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian full dress. + +All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented and +curled, their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings and armlets, +flat gold collars and swords, and impossible-looking head-dresses. + +A stupefied silence fell on them. + +“I say,” a youth who had always been fair-haired broke that silence, +“it’s only fancy of course—something wrong with my eyes—but you chaps +do look so rum.” + +“Rum,” said his friend. “Look at _you_. You in a sash! My hat! And your +hair’s gone black and you’ve got a beard. It’s my belief we’ve been +poisoned. You do look a jackape.” + +“Old Levinstein don’t look so bad. But how was it _done_—that’s what I +want to know. How _was_ it done? Is it conjuring, or what?” + +“I think it is chust a ver’ bad tream,” said old Levinstein to his +clerk; “all along Bishopsgate I haf seen the gommon people have their +hants full of food—_goot_ food. Oh yes, without doubt a very bad +tream!” + +“Then I’m dreaming too, sir,” said the clerk, looking down at his legs +with an expression of loathing. “I see my feet in beastly sandals as +plain as plain.” + +“All that goot food wasted,” said old Mr Levinstein. A bad tream—a bad +tream.” + +The Members of the Stock Exchange are said to be at all times a noisy +lot. But the noise they made now to express their disgust at the +costumes of ancient Babylon was far louder than their ordinary row. One +had to shout before one could hear oneself speak. + +“I only wish,” said the clerk who thought it was conjuring—he was quite +close to the children and they trembled, because they knew that +whatever he wished would come true. “I only wish we knew who’d done +it.” + +And, of course, instantly they did know, and they pressed round the +Queen. + +“Scandalous! Shameful! Ought to be put down by law. Give her in charge. +Fetch the police,” two or three voices shouted at once. + +The Queen recoiled. + +“What is it?” she asked. “They sound like caged lions—lions by the +thousand. What is it that they say?” + +“They say ‘Police!’,” said Cyril briefly. “I knew they would sooner or +later. And I don’t blame them, mind you.” + +“I wish my guards were here!” cried the Queen. The exhausted Psammead +was panting and trembling, but the Queen’s guards in red and green +garments, and brass and iron gear, choked Throgmorton Street, and bared +weapons flashed round the Queen. + +“I’m mad,” said a Mr Rosenbaum; “dat’s what it is—mad!” + +“It’s a judgement on you, Rosy,” said his partner. “I always said you +were too hard in that matter of Flowerdew. It’s a judgement, and I’m in +it too.” + +The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from the +gleaming blades, the mailed figures, the hard, cruel Eastern faces. But +Throgmorton Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for them to +get away as quickly as they wished. + +“Kill them,” cried the Queen. “Kill the dogs!” + +The guards obeyed. + +“It _is_ all a dream,” cried Mr Levinstein, cowering in a doorway +behind his clerk. + +“It isn’t,” said the clerk. “It isn’t. Oh, my good gracious! those +foreign brutes are killing everybody. Henry Hirsh is down now, and +Prentice is cut in two—oh, Lord! and Huth, and there goes Lionel Cohen +with his head off, and Guy Nickalls has lost his head now. A dream? I +wish to goodness it was all a dream.” + +And, of course, instantly it was! The entire Stock Exchange rubbed its +eyes and went back to close, to over, and either side of seven-eights, +and Trunks, and Kaffirs, and Steel Common, and Contangoes, and +Backwardations, Double Options, and all the interesting subjects +concerning which they talk in the Street without ceasing. + +No one said a word about it to anyone else. I think I have explained +before that business men do not like it to be known that they have been +dreaming in business hours. Especially mad dreams including such +dreadful things as hungry people getting dinners, and the destruction +of the Stock Exchange. + +The children were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street, pale and +trembling. The Psammead crawled out of the embroidered bag, and lay +flat on the table, its leg stretched out, looking more like a dead hare +than anything else. + +“Thank Goodness that’s over,” said Anthea, drawing a deep breath. + +“She won’t come back, will she?” asked Jane tremulously. + +“No,” said Cyril. “She’s thousands of years ago. But we spent a whole +precious pound on her. It’ll take all our pocket-money for ages to pay +that back.” + +“Not if it was _all_ a dream,” said Robert. “The wish said _all_ a +dream, you know, Panther; you cut up and ask if he lent you anything.” + +“I beg your pardon,” said Anthea politely, following the sound of her +knock into the presence of the learned gentleman, “I’m _so_ sorry to +trouble you, but _did_ you lend me a pound today?” + +“No,” said he, looking kindly at her through his spectacles. “But it’s +extraordinary that you should ask me, for I dozed for a few moments +this afternoon, a thing I very rarely do, and I dreamed quite +distinctly that you brought me a ring that you said belonged to the +Queen of Babylon, and that I lent you a sovereign and that you left one +of the Queen’s rings here. The ring was a magnificent specimen.” He +sighed. “I wish it hadn’t been a dream,” he said smiling. He was really +learning to smile quite nicely. + +Anthea could not be too thankful that the Psammead was not there to +grant his wish. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +ATLANTIS + + +You will understand that the adventure of the Babylonian queen in +London was the only one that had occupied any time at all. But the +children’s time was very fully taken up by talking over all the +wonderful things seen and done in the Past, where, by the power of the +Amulet, they seemed to spend hours and hours, only to find when they +got back to London that the whole thing had been briefer than a +lightning flash. + +They talked of the Past at their meals, in their walks, in the +dining-room, in the first-floor drawing-room, but most of all on the +stairs. It was an old house; it had once been a fashionable one, and +was a fine one still. The banister rails of the stairs were excellent +for sliding down, and in the corners of the landings were big alcoves +that had once held graceful statues, and now quite often held the +graceful forms of Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane. + +One day Cyril and Robert in tight white underclothing had spent a +pleasant hour in reproducing the attitudes of statues seen either in +the British Museum, or in Father’s big photograph book. But the show +ended abruptly because Robert wanted to be the Venus of Milo, and for +this purpose pulled at the sheet which served for drapery at the very +moment when Cyril, looking really quite like the Discobolos—with a gold +and white saucer for the disc—was standing on one foot, and under that +one foot was the sheet. + +Of course the Discobolos and his disc and the would-be Venus came down +together, and everyone was a good deal hurt, especially the saucer, +which would never be the same again, however neatly one might join its +uneven bits with Seccotine or the white of an egg. + +“I hope you’re satisfied,” said Cyril, holding his head where a large +lump was rising. + +“Quite, thanks,” said Robert bitterly. His thumb had caught in the +banisters and bent itself back almost to breaking point. + +“I _am_ so sorry, poor, dear Squirrel,” said Anthea; “and you were +looking so lovely. I’ll get a wet rag. Bobs, go and hold your hand +under the hot-water tap. It’s what ballet girls do with their legs when +they hurt them. I saw it in a book.” + +“What book?” said Robert disagreeably. But he went. + +When he came back Cyril’s head had been bandaged by his sisters, and he +had been brought to the state of mind where he was able reluctantly to +admit that he supposed Robert hadn’t done it on purpose. + +Robert replying with equal suavity, Anthea hastened to lead the talk +away from the accident. + +“I suppose you don’t feel like going anywhere through the Amulet,” she +said. + +“Egypt!” said Jane promptly. “I want to see the pussy cats.” + +“Not me—too hot,” said Cyril. “It’s about as much as I can stand +here—let alone Egypt.” It was indeed, hot, even on the second landing, +which was the coolest place in the house. “Let’s go to the North Pole.” + +“I don’t suppose the Amulet was ever there—and we might get our fingers +frost-bitten so that we could never hold it up to get home again. No +thanks,” said Robert. + +“I say,” said Jane, “let’s get the Psammead and ask its advice. It will +like us asking, even if we don’t take it.” + +The Psammead was brought up in its green silk embroidered bag, but +before it could be asked anything the door of the learned gentleman’s +room opened and the voice of the visitor who had been lunching with him +was heard on the stairs. He seemed to be speaking with the door handle +in his hand. + +“You see a doctor, old boy,” he said; “all that about +thought-transference is just simply twaddle. You’ve been over-working. +Take a holiday. Go to Dieppe.” + +“I’d rather go to Babylon,” said the learned gentleman. + +“I wish you’d go to Atlantis some time, while we’re about it, so as to +give me some tips for my _Nineteenth Century_ article when you come +home.” + +“I wish I could,” said the voice of the learned gentleman. + + +“Goodbye. Take care of yourself.” + +The door was banged, and the visitor came smiling down the stairs—a +stout, prosperous, big man. The children had to get up to let him pass. + +“Hullo, Kiddies,” he said, glancing at the bandages on the head of +Cyril and the hand of Robert, “been in the wars?” + +“It’s all right,” said Cyril. “I say, what was that Atlantic place you +wanted him to go to? We couldn’t help hearing you talk.” + +“You talk so _very_ loud, you see,” said Jane soothingly. + +“Atlantis,” said the visitor, “the lost Atlantis, garden of the +Hesperides. Great continent—disappeared in the sea. You can read about +it in Plato.” + +“Thank you,” said Cyril doubtfully. + +“Were there any Amulets there?” asked Anthea, made anxious by a sudden +thought. + +“Hundreds, I should think. So _he’s_ been talking to you?” + +“Yes, often. He’s very kind to us. We like him awfully.” + +“Well, what he wants is a holiday; you persuade him to take one. What +he wants is a change of scene. You see, his head is crusted so thickly +inside with knowledge about Egypt and Assyria and things that you can’t +hammer anything into it unless you keep hard at it all day long for +days and days. And I haven’t time. But you live in the house. You can +hammer almost incessantly. Just try your hands, will you? Right. So +long!” + +He went down the stairs three at a time, and Jane remarked that he was +a nice man, and she thought he had little girls of his own. + +“I should like to have them to play with,” she added pensively. + +The three elder ones exchanged glances. Cyril nodded. + +“All right. _Let’s_ go to Atlantis,” he said. + +“Let’s go to Atlantis and take the learned gentleman with us,” said +Anthea; “he’ll think it’s a dream, afterwards, but it’ll certainly be a +change of scene.” + +“Why not take him to nice Egypt?” asked Jane. + +“Too hot,” said Cyril shortly. + +“Or Babylon, where he wants to go?” + +“I’ve had enough of Babylon,” said Robert, “at least for the present. +And so have the others. I don’t know why,” he added, forestalling the +question on Jane’s lips, “but somehow we have. Squirrel, let’s take off +these beastly bandages and get into flannels. We can’t go in our +unders.” + +“He _wished_ to go to Atlantis, so he’s got to go some time; and he +might as well go with us,” said Anthea. + +This was how it was that the learned gentleman, permitting himself a +few moments of relaxation in his chair, after the fatigue of listening +to opinions (about Atlantis and many other things) with which he did +not at all agree, opened his eyes to find his four young friends +standing in front of him in a row. + +“Will you come,” said Anthea, “to Atlantis with us?” + +“To know that you are dreaming shows that the dream is nearly at an +end,” he told himself; “or perhaps it’s only a game, like ‘How many +miles to Babylon?’” + +So he said aloud: “Thank you very much, but I have only a quarter of an +hour to spare.” + +“It doesn’t take any time,” said Cyril; “time is only a mode of +thought, you know, and you’ve got to go some time, so why not with us?” + +“Very well,” said the learned gentleman, now quite certain that he was +dreaming. + +Anthea held out her soft, pink hand. He took it. She pulled him gently +to his feet. Jane held up the Amulet. + +“To just outside Atlantis,” said Cyril, and Jane said the Name of +Power. + +“You owl!” said Robert, “it’s an island. Outside an island’s all +water.” + +“I won’t go. I _won’t_,” said the Psammead, kicking and struggling in +its bag. + +But already the Amulet had grown to a great arch. Cyril pushed the +learned gentleman, as undoubtedly the first-born, through the arch—not +into water, but on to a wooden floor, out of doors. The others +followed. The Amulet grew smaller again, and there they all were, +standing on the deck of a ship whose sailors were busy making her fast +with chains to rings on a white quay-side. The rings and the chains +were of a metal that shone red-yellow like gold. + +Everyone on the ship seemed too busy at first to notice the group of +newcomers from Fitzroy Street. Those who seemed to be officers were +shouting orders to the men. + +They stood and looked across the wide quay to the town that rose beyond +it. What they saw was the most beautiful sight any of them had ever +seen—or ever dreamed of. + +The blue sea sparkled in soft sunlight; little white-capped waves broke +softly against the marble breakwaters that guarded the shipping of a +great city from the wilderness of winter winds and seas. The quay was +of marble, white and sparkling with a veining bright as gold. The city +was of marble, red and white. The greater buildings that seemed to be +temples and palaces were roofed with what looked like gold and silver, +but most of the roofs were of copper that glowed golden-red on the +houses on the hills among which the city stood, and shaded into +marvellous tints of green and blue and purple where they had been +touched by the salt sea spray and the fumes of the dyeing and smelting +works of the lower town. + +Broad and magnificent flights of marble stairs led up from the quay to +a sort of terrace that seemed to run along for miles, and beyond rose +the town built on a hill. + +The learned gentleman drew a long breath. “Wonderful!” he said, +“wonderful!” + +“I say, Mr—what’s your name,” said Robert. + +“He means,” said Anthea, with gentle politeness, “that we never can +remember your name. I know it’s Mr De Something.” + +“When I was your age I was called Jimmy,” he said timidly. “Would you +mind? I should feel more at home in a dream like this if I—Anything +that made me seem more like one of you.” + +“Thank you—Jimmy,” said Anthea with an effort. It seemed such a cheek +to be saying Jimmy to a grown-up man. “Jimmy, _dear_,” she added, with +no effort at all. Jimmy smiled and looked pleased. + +But now the ship was made fast, and the Captain had time to notice +other things. He came towards them, and he was dressed in the best of +all possible dresses for the seafaring life. + +“What are you doing here?” he asked rather fiercely. “Do you come to +bless or to curse?” + +“To bless, of course,” said Cyril. “I’m sorry if it annoys you, but +we’re here by magic. We come from the land of the sun-rising,” he went +on explanatorily. + +“I see,” said the Captain; no one had expected that he would. “I didn’t +notice at first, but of course I hope you’re a good omen. It’s needed. +And this,” he pointed to the learned gentleman, “your slave, I +presume?” + +“Not at all,” said Anthea; “he’s a very great man. A sage, don’t they +call it? And we want to see all your beautiful city, and your temples +and things, and then we shall go back, and he will tell his friend, and +his friend will write a book about it.” + +“What,” asked the Captain, fingering a rope, “is a book?” + +“A record—something written, or,” she added hastily, remembering the +Babylonian writing, “or engraved.” + +Some sudden impulse of confidence made Jane pluck the Amulet from the +neck of her frock. + +“Like this,” she said. + +The Captain looked at it curiously, but, the other three were relieved +to notice, without any of that overwhelming interest which the mere +name of it had roused in Egypt and Babylon. + +“The stone is of our country,” he said; “and that which is engraved on +it, it is like our writing, but I cannot read it. What is the name of +your sage?” + +“Ji-jimmy,” said Anthea hesitatingly. + +The Captain repeated, “Ji-jimmy. Will you land?” he added. “And shall I +lead you to the Kings?” + +“Look here,” said Robert, “does your King hate strangers?” + +“Our Kings are ten,” said the Captain, “and the Royal line, unbroken +from Poseidon, the father of us all, has the noble tradition to do +honour to strangers if they come in peace.” + +“Then lead on, please,” said Robert, “though I _should_ like to see all +over your beautiful ship, and sail about in her.” + +“That shall be later,” said the Captain; “just now we’re afraid of a +storm—do you notice that odd rumbling?” + +“That’s nothing, master,” said an old sailor who stood near; “it’s the +pilchards coming in, that’s all.” + +“Too loud,” said the Captain. + +There was a rather anxious pause; then the Captain stepped on to the +quay, and the others followed him. + +“Do talk to him—Jimmy,” said Anthea as they went; “you can find out all +sorts of things for your friend’s book.” + +“Please excuse me,” he said earnestly. “If I talk I shall wake up; and +besides, I can’t understand what he says.” + +No one else could think of anything to say, so that it was in complete +silence that they followed the Captain up the marble steps and through +the streets of the town. There were streets and shops and houses and +markets. + +“It’s just like Babylon,” whispered Jane, “only everything’s perfectly +different.” + +“It’s a great comfort the ten Kings have been properly brought up—to be +kind to strangers,” Anthea whispered to Cyril. + +“Yes,” he said, “no deepest dungeons here.” + +There were no horses or chariots in the street, but there were +handcarts and low trolleys running on thick log-wheels, and porters +carrying packets on their heads, and a good many of the people were +riding on what looked like elephants, only the great beasts were hairy, +and they had not that mild expression we are accustomed to meet on the +faces of the elephants at the Zoo. + +“Mammoths!” murmured the learned gentleman, and stumbled over a loose +stone. + +The people in the streets kept crowding round them as they went along, +but the Captain always dispersed the crowd before it grew uncomfortably +thick by saying— + +“Children of the Sun God and their High Priest—come to bless the City.” + +And then the people would draw back with a low murmur that sounded like +a suppressed cheer. + +Many of the buildings were covered with gold, but the gold on the +bigger buildings was of a different colour, and they had sorts of +steeples of burnished silver rising above them. + +“Are all these houses real gold?” asked Jane. + +“The temples are covered with gold, of course,” answered the Captain, +“but the houses are only oricalchum. It’s not quite so expensive.” + +The learned gentleman, now very pale, stumbled along in a dazed way, +repeating: + +“Oricalchum—oricalchum.” + +“Don’t be frightened,” said Anthea; “we can get home in a minute, just +by holding up the charm. Would you rather go back now? We could easily +come some other day without you.” + +“Oh, no, no,” he pleaded fervently; “let the dream go on. Please, +please do.” + +“The High Ji-jimmy is perhaps weary with his magic journey,” said the +Captain, noticing the blundering walk of the learned gentleman; “and we +are yet very far from the Great Temple, where today the Kings make +sacrifice.” + +He stopped at the gate of a great enclosure. It seemed to be a sort of +park, for trees showed high above its brazen wall. + +The party waited, and almost at once the Captain came back with one of +the hairy elephants and begged them to mount. + +This they did. + +It was a glorious ride. The elephant at the Zoo—to ride on him is also +glorious, but he goes such a very little way, and then he goes back +again, which is always dull. But this great hairy beast went on and on +and on along streets and through squares and gardens. It was a glorious +city; almost everything was built of marble, red, or white, or black. +Every now and then the party crossed a bridge. + +It was not till they had climbed to the hill which is the centre of the +town that they saw that the whole city was divided into twenty circles, +alternately land and water, and over each of the water circles were the +bridges by which they had come. + +And now they were in a great square. A vast building filled up one side +of it; it was overlaid with gold, and had a dome of silver. The rest of +the buildings round the square were of oricalchum. And it looked more +splendid than you can possibly imagine, standing up bold and shining in +the sunlight. + +“You would like a bath,” said the Captain, as the hairy elephant went +clumsily down on his knees. “It’s customary, you know, before entering +the Presence. We have baths for men, women, horses, and cattle. The +High Class Baths are here. Our Father Poseidon gave us a spring of hot +water and one of cold.” + +The children had never before bathed in baths of gold. + +“It feels very splendid,” said Cyril, splashing. + +“At least, of course, it’s not gold; it’s or—what’s its name,” said +Robert. “Hand over that towel.” + +The bathing hall had several great pools sunk below the level of the +floor; one went down to them by steps. + +“Jimmy,” said Anthea timidly, when, very clean and boiled-looking, they +all met in the flowery courtyard of the Public, “don’t you think all +this seems much more like _now_ than Babylon or Egypt—? Oh, I forgot, +you’ve never been there.” + +“I know a little of those nations, however,” said he, “and I quite +agree with you. A most discerning remark—my dear,” he added awkwardly; +“this city certainly seems to indicate a far higher level of +civilization than the Egyptian or Babylonish, and—” + +“Follow me,” said the Captain. “Now, boys, get out of the way.” He +pushed through a little crowd of boys who were playing with dried +chestnuts fastened to a string. + +“Ginger!” remarked Robert, “they’re playing conkers, just like the kids +in Kentish Town Road!” + +They could see now that three walls surrounded the island on which they +were. The outermost wall was of brass, the Captain told them; the next, +which looked like silver, was covered with tin; and the innermost one +was of oricalchum. + +And right in the middle was a wall of gold, with golden towers and +gates. + +“Behold the Temples of Poseidon,” said the Captain. “It is not lawful +for me to enter. I will await your return here.” + +He told them what they ought to say, and the five people from Fitzroy +Street took hands and went forward. The golden gates slowly opened. + +“We are the children of the Sun,” said Cyril, as he had been told, “and +our High Priest, at least that’s what the Captain calls him. We have a +different name for him at home.” + +“What is his name?” asked a white-robed man who stood in the doorway +with his arms extended. + +“Ji-jimmy,” replied Cyril, and he hesitated as Anthea had done. It +really did seem to be taking a great liberty with so learned a +gentleman. “And we have come to speak with your Kings in the Temple of +Poseidon—does that word sound right?” he whispered anxiously. + +“Quite,” said the learned gentleman. “It’s very odd I can understand +what you say to them, but not what they say to you.” + +“The Queen of Babylon found that too,” said Cyril; “it’s part of the +magic.” + +“Oh, what a dream!” said the learned gentleman. + +The white-robed priest had been joined by others, and all were bowing +low. + +“Enter,” he said, “enter, Children of the Sun, with your High +Ji-jimmy.” + +In an inner courtyard stood the Temple—all of silver, with gold +pinnacles and doors, and twenty enormous statues in bright gold of men +and women. Also an immense pillar of the other precious yellow metal. + +They went through the doors, and the priest led them up a stair into a +gallery from which they could look down on to the glorious place. + +“The ten Kings are even now choosing the bull. It is not lawful for me +to behold,” said the priest, and fell face downward on the floor +outside the gallery. The children looked down. + +The roof was of ivory adorned with the three precious metals, and the +walls were lined with the favourite oricalchum. + +At the far end of the Temple was a statue group, the like of which no +one living has ever seen. + +It was of gold, and the head of the chief figure reached to the roof. +That figure was Poseidon, the Father of the City. He stood in a great +chariot drawn by six enormous horses, and round about it were a hundred +mermaids riding on dolphins. + +Ten men, splendidly dressed and armed only with sticks and ropes, were +trying to capture one of some fifteen bulls who ran this way and that +about the floor of the Temple. The children held their breath, for the +bulls looked dangerous, and the great horned heads were swinging more +and more wildly. + +Anthea did not like looking at the bulls. She looked about the gallery, +and noticed that another staircase led up from it to a still higher +storey; also that a door led out into the open air, where there seemed +to be a balcony. + +So that when a shout went up and Robert whispered, “Got him,” and she +looked down and saw the herd of bulls being driven out of the Temple by +whips, and the ten Kings following, one of them spurring with his stick +a black bull that writhed and fought in the grip of a lasso, she +answered the boy’s agitated, “Now we shan’t see anything more,” with— + +“Yes we can, there’s an outside balcony.” + +So they crowded out. + +But very soon the girls crept back. + +“I don’t like sacrifices,” Jane said. So she and Anthea went and talked +to the priest, who was no longer lying on his face, but sitting on the +top step mopping his forehead with his robe, for it was a hot day. + +“It’s a special sacrifice,” he said; “usually it’s only done on the +justice days every five years and six years alternately. And then they +drink the cup of wine with some of the bull’s blood in it, and swear to +judge truly. And they wear the sacred blue robe, and put out all the +Temple fires. But this today is because the City’s so upset by the odd +noises from the sea, and the god inside the big mountain speaking with +his thunder-voice. But all that’s happened so often before. If anything +could make ME uneasy it wouldn’t be _that_.” + +“What would it be?” asked Jane kindly. + +“It would be the Lemmings.” + +“Who are they—enemies?” + +“They’re a sort of rat; and every year they come swimming over from the +country that no man knows, and stay here awhile, and then swim away. +This year they haven’t come. You know rats won’t stay on a ship that’s +going to be wrecked. If anything horrible were going to happen to us, +it’s my belief those Lemmings would know; and that may be why they’ve +fought shy of us.” + +“What do you call this country?” asked the Psammead, suddenly putting +its head out of its bag. + +“Atlantis,” said the priest. + +“Then I advise you to get on to the highest ground you can find. I +remember hearing something about a flood here. Look here, you”—it +turned to Anthea; “let’s get home. The prospect’s too wet for my +whiskers.” + +The girls obediently went to find their brothers, who were leaning on +the balcony railings. + +“Where’s the learned gentleman?” asked Anthea. + +“There he is—below,” said the priest, who had come with them. “Your +High Ji-jimmy is with the Kings.” + +The ten Kings were no longer alone. The learned gentleman—no one had +noticed how he got there—stood with them on the steps of an altar, on +which lay the dead body of the black bull. All the rest of the +courtyard was thick with people, seemingly of all classes, and all were +shouting, “The sea—the sea!” + +“Be calm,” said the most kingly of the Kings, he who had lassoed the +bull. “Our town is strong against the thunders of the sea and of the +sky!” + +“I want to go home,” whined the Psammead. + +“We can’t go without _him_,” said Anthea firmly. + +“Jimmy,” she called, “Jimmy!” and waved to him. He heard her, and began +to come towards her through the crowd. + +They could see from the balcony the sea-captain edging his way out from +among the people. And his face was dead white, like paper. + +“To the hills!” he cried in a loud and terrible voice. And above his +voice came another voice, louder, more terrible—the voice of the sea. + +The girls looked seaward. + +Across the smooth distance of the sea something huge and black rolled +towards the town. It was a wave, but a wave a hundred feet in height, a +wave that looked like a mountain—a wave rising higher and higher till +suddenly it seemed to break in two—one half of it rushed out to sea +again; the other— + +“Oh!” cried Anthea, “the town—the poor people!” + +“It’s all thousands of years ago, really,” said Robert but his voice +trembled. They hid their eyes for a moment. They could not bear to look +down, for the wave had broken on the face of the town, sweeping over +the quays and docks, overwhelming the great storehouses and factories, +tearing gigantic stones from forts and bridges, and using them as +battering rams against the temples. Great ships were swept over the +roofs of the houses and dashed down halfway up the hill among ruined +gardens and broken buildings. The water ground brown fishing-boats to +powder on the golden roofs of Palaces. + +Then the wave swept back towards the sea. + +“I want to go home,” cried the Psammead fiercely. + +“Oh, yes, yes!” said Jane, and the boys were ready—but the learned +gentleman had not come. + +Then suddenly they heard him dash up to the inner gallery, crying— + +“I _must_ see the end of the dream.” He rushed up the higher flight. +The others followed him. They found themselves in a sort of +turret—roofed, but open to the air at the sides. + +The learned gentleman was leaning on the parapet, and as they rejoined +him the vast wave rushed back on the town. This time it rose +higher—destroyed more. + +“Come home,” cried the Psammead; “_that’s_ the _last_, I know it is! +That’s the last—over there.” It pointed with a claw that trembled. + +“Oh, come!” cried Jane, holding up the Amulet. + +“I _will see_ the end of the dream,” cried the learned gentleman. + +“You’ll never see anything else if you do,” said Cyril. + +“Oh, _Jimmy!_” appealed Anthea. “I’ll _never_ bring you out again!” + +“You’ll never have the chance if you don’t go soon,” said the Psammead. + +“I _will_ see the end of the dream,” said the learned gentleman +obstinately. + +The hills around were black with people fleeing from the villages to +the mountains. And even as they fled thin smoke broke from the great +white peak, and then a faint flash of flame. Then the volcano began to +throw up its mysterious fiery inside parts. The earth trembled; ashes +and sulphur showered down; a rain of fine pumice-stone fell like snow +on all the dry land. The elephants from the forest rushed up towards +the peaks; great lizards thirty yards long broke from the mountain +pools and rushed down towards the sea. The snows melted and rushed +down, first in avalanches, then in roaring torrents. Great rocks cast +up by the volcano fell splashing in the sea miles away. + +“Oh, this is horrible!” cried Anthea. “Come home, come home!” + +“The end of the dream,” gasped the learned gentleman. + +“Hold up the Amulet,” cried the Psammead suddenly. The place where they +stood was now crowded with men and women, and the children were +strained tight against the parapet. The turret rocked and swayed; the +wave had reached the golden wall. + +Jane held up the Amulet. + +“Now,” cried the Psammead, “say the word!” + +And as Jane said it the Psammead leaped from its bag and bit the hand +of the learned gentleman. + +At the same moment the boys pushed him through the arch and all +followed him. + +He turned to look back, and through the arch he saw nothing but a waste +of waters, with above it the peak of the terrible mountain with fire +raging from it. + +He staggered back to his chair. + +“What a ghastly dream!” he gasped. “Oh, you’re here, my—er—dears. Can I +do anything for you?” + +“You’ve hurt your hand,” said Anthea gently; “let me bind it up.” + +The hand was indeed bleeding rather badly. + +The Psammead had crept back to its bag. All the children were very +white. + +“Never again,” said the Psammead later on, “will I go into the Past +with a grown-up person! I will say for you four, you do do as you’re +told.” + +“We didn’t even find the Amulet,” said Anthea later still. + +“Of course you didn’t; it wasn’t there. Only the stone it was made of +was there. It fell on to a ship miles away that managed to escape and +got to Egypt. _I_ could have told you that.” + +“I wish you had,” said Anthea, and her voice was still rather shaky. +“Why didn’t you?” + +“You never asked me,” said the Psammead very sulkily. “I’m not the sort +of chap to go shoving my oar in where it’s not wanted.” + +“Mr Ji-jimmy’s friend will have something worth having to put in his +article now,” said Cyril very much later indeed. + +“Not he,” said Robert sleepily. “The learned Ji-jimmy will think it’s a +dream, and it’s ten to one he never tells the other chap a word about +it at all.” + +Robert was quite right on both points. The learned gentleman did. And +he never did. + + + + +CHAPTER X. +THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL AND JULIUS CAESAR + + +A great city swept away by the sea, a beautiful country devastated by +an active volcano—these are not the sort of things you see every day of +the week. And when you do see them, no matter how many other wonders +you may have seen in your time, such sights are rather apt to take your +breath away. Atlantis had certainly this effect on the breaths of +Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane. + +They remained in a breathless state for some days. The learned +gentleman seemed as breathless as anyone; he spent a good deal of what +little breath he had in telling Anthea about a wonderful dream he had. +“You would hardly believe,” he said, “that anyone _could_ have such a +detailed vision.” + +But Anthea could believe it, she said, quite easily. + +He had ceased to talk about thought-transference. He had now seen too +many wonders to believe that. + +In consequence of their breathless condition none of the children +suggested any new excursions through the Amulet. Robert voiced the mood +of the others when he said that they were “fed up” with Amulet for a +bit. They undoubtedly were. + +As for the Psammead, it went to sand and stayed there, worn out by the +terror of the flood and the violent exercise it had had to take in +obedience to the inconsiderate wishes of the learned gentleman and the +Babylonian queen. + +The children let it sleep. The danger of taking it about among strange +people who might at any moment utter undesirable wishes was becoming +more and more plain. + +And there are pleasant things to be done in London without any aid from +Amulets or Psammeads. You can, for instance visit the Tower of London, +the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, the Zoological Gardens, +the various Parks, the Museums at South Kensington, Madame Tussaud’s +Exhibition of Waxworks, or the Botanical Gardens at Kew. You can go to +Kew by river steamer—and this is the way that the children would have +gone if they had gone at all. Only they never did, because it was when +they were discussing the arrangements for the journey, and what they +should take with them to eat and how much of it, and what the whole +thing would cost, that the adventure of the Little Black Girl began to +happen. + +The children were sitting on a seat in St James’s Park. They had been +watching the pelican repulsing with careful dignity the advances of the +seagulls who are always so anxious to play games with it. The pelican +thinks, very properly, that it hasn’t the figure for games, so it +spends most of its time pretending that that is not the reason why it +won’t play. + +The breathlessness caused by Atlantis was wearing off a little. Cyril, +who always wanted to understand all about everything, was turning +things over in his mind. + +“I’m not; I’m only thinking,” he answered when Robert asked him what he +was so grumpy about. “I’ll tell you when I’ve thought it all out.” + +“If it’s about the Amulet I don’t want to hear it,” said Jane. + +“Nobody asked you to,” retorted Cyril mildly, “and I haven’t finished +my inside thinking about it yet. Let’s go to Kew in the meantime.” + +“I’d rather go in a steamer,” said Robert; and the girls laughed. + +“That’s right,” said Cyril, “_be_ funny. I would.” + +“Well, he was, rather,” said Anthea. + +“I wouldn’t think, Squirrel, if it hurts you so,” said Robert kindly. + +“Oh, shut up,” said Cyril, “or else talk about Kew.” + +“I want to see the palms there,” said Anthea hastily, “to see if +they’re anything like the ones on the island where we united the Cook +and the Burglar by the Reverend Half-Curate.” + +All disagreeableness was swept away in a pleasant tide of +recollections, and “Do you remember...?” they said. “Have you +forgotten...?” + +“My hat!” remarked Cyril pensively, as the flood of reminiscence ebbed +a little; “we have had some times.” + +“We have that,” said Robert. + +“Don’t let’s have any more,” said Jane anxiously. + +“That’s what I was thinking about,” Cyril replied; and just then they +heard the Little Black Girl sniff. She was quite close to them. + +She was not really a little black girl. She was shabby and not very +clean, and she had been crying so much that you could hardly see, +through the narrow chink between her swollen lids, how very blue her +eyes were. It was her dress that was black, and it was too big and too +long for her, and she wore a speckled black-ribboned sailor hat that +would have fitted a much bigger head than her little flaxen one. And +she stood looking at the children and sniffing. + +“Oh, dear!” said Anthea, jumping up. “Whatever is the matter?” + +She put her hand on the little girl’s arm. It was rudely shaken off. + +“You leave me be,” said the little girl. “I ain’t doing nothing to +you.” + +“But what is it?” Anthea asked. “Has someone been hurting you?” + +“What’s that to you?” said the little girl fiercely. “_You’re_ all +right.” + +“Come away,” said Robert, pulling at Anthea’s sleeve. “She’s a nasty, +rude little kid.” + +“Oh, no,” said Anthea. “She’s only dreadfully unhappy. What is it?” she +asked again. + +“Oh, _you’re_ all right,” the child repeated; “_you_ ain’t agoin’ to +the Union.” + +“Can’t we take you home?” said Anthea; and Jane added, “Where does your +mother live?” + +“She don’t live nowheres—she’s dead—so now!” said the little girl +fiercely, in tones of miserable triumph. Then she opened her swollen +eyes widely, stamped her foot in fury, and ran away. She ran no further +than to the next bench, flung herself down there and began to cry +without even trying not to. + +Anthea, quite at once, went to the little girl and put her arms as +tight as she could round the hunched-up black figure. + +“Oh, don’t cry so, dear, don’t, don’t!” she whispered under the brim of +the large sailor hat, now very crooked indeed. “Tell Anthea all about +it; Anthea’lll help you. There, there, dear, don’t cry.” + +The others stood at a distance. One or two passers-by stared curiously. + +The child was now only crying part of the time; the rest of the time +she seemed to be talking to Anthea. + +Presently Anthea beckoned Cyril. + +“It’s horrible!” she said in a furious whisper, “her father was a +carpenter and he was a steady man, and never touched a drop except on a +Saturday, and he came up to London for work, and there wasn’t any, and +then he died; and her name is Imogen, and she’s nine come next +November. And now her mother’s dead, and she’s to stay tonight with Mrs +Shrobsall—that’s a landlady that’s been kind—and tomorrow the Relieving +Officer is coming for her, and she’s going into the Union; that means +the Workhouse. It’s too terrible. What can we do?” + +“Let’s ask the learned gentleman,” said Jane brightly. + +And as no one else could think of anything better the whole party +walked back to Fitzroy Street as fast as it could, the little girl +holding tight to Anthea’s hand and now not crying any more, only +sniffing gently. + +The learned gentleman looked up from his writing with the smile that +had grown much easier to him than it used to be. They were quite at +home in his room now; it really seemed to welcome them. Even the +mummy-case appeared to smile as if in its distant superior ancient +Egyptian way it were rather pleased to see them than not. + +Anthea sat on the stairs with Imogen, who was nine come next November, +while the others went in and explained the difficulty. + +The learned gentleman listened with grave attention. + +“It really does seem rather rough luck,” Cyril concluded, “because I’ve +often heard about rich people who wanted children most awfully—though I +know _I_ never should—but they do. There must be somebody who’d be glad +to have her.” + +“Gipsies are awfully fond of children,” Robert hopefully said. “They’re +always stealing them. Perhaps they’d have her.” + +“She’s quite a nice little girl really,” Jane added; “she was only rude +at first because we looked jolly and happy, and she wasn’t. You +understand that, don’t you?” + +“Yes,” said he, absently fingering a little blue image from Egypt. “I +understand that very well. As you say, there must be some home where +she would be welcome.” He scowled thoughtfully at the little blue +image. + +Anthea outside thought the explanation was taking a very long time. She +was so busy trying to cheer and comfort the little black girl that she +never noticed the Psammead who, roused from sleep by her voice, had +shaken itself free of sand, and was coming crookedly up the stairs. It +was close to her before she saw it. She picked it up and settled it in +her lap. + +“What is it?” asked the black child. “Is it a cat or a organ-monkey, or +what?” + +And then Anthea heard the learned gentleman say— + +“Yes, I wish we could find a home where they would be glad to have +her,” and instantly she felt the Psammead begin to blow itself out as +it sat on her lap. + +She jumped up lifting the Psammead in her skirt, and holding Imogen by +the hand, rushed into the learned gentleman’s room. + +“At least let’s keep together,” she cried. “All hold hands—quick!” + +The circle was like that formed for the Mulberry Bush or Ring-o’-Roses. +And Anthea was only able to take part in it by holding in her teeth the +hem of her frock which, thus supported, formed a bag to hold the +Psammead. + +“Is it a game?” asked the learned gentleman feebly. No one answered. + +There was a moment of suspense; then came that curious upside-down, +inside-out sensation which one almost always feels when transported +from one place to another by magic. Also there was that dizzy dimness +of sight which comes on these occasions. + +The mist cleared, the upside-down, inside-out sensation subsided, and +there stood the six in a ring, as before, only their twelve feet, +instead of standing on the carpet of the learned gentleman’s room, +stood on green grass. Above them, instead of the dusky ceiling of the +Fitzroy Street floor, was a pale blue sky. And where the walls had been +and the painted mummy-case, were tall dark green trees, oaks and ashes, +and in between the trees and under them tangled bushes and creeping +ivy. There were beech-trees too, but there was nothing under them but +their own dead red drifted leaves, and here and there a delicate green +fern-frond. + +And there they stood in a circle still holding hands, as though they +were playing Ring-o’-Roses or the Mulberry Bush. Just six people hand +in hand in a wood. That sounds simple, but then you must remember that +they did not know _where_ the wood was, and what’s more, they didn’t +know _when_ then wood was. There was a curious sort of feeling that +made the learned gentleman say— + +“Another dream, dear me!” and made the children almost certain that +they were in a time a very long while ago. As for little Imogen, she +said, “Oh, my!” and kept her mouth very much open indeed. + +“Where are we?” Cyril asked the Psammead. + +“In Britain,” said the Psammead. + +“But when?” asked Anthea anxiously. + +“About the year fifty-five before the year you reckon time from,” said +the Psammead crossly. “Is there anything else you want to know?” it +added, sticking its head out of the bag formed by Anthea’s blue linen +frock, and turning its snail’s eyes to right and left. “I’ve been here +before—it’s very little changed.” + +“Yes, but why here?” asked Anthea. + +“Your inconsiderate friend,” the Psammead replied, “wished to find some +home where they would be glad to have that unattractive and immature +female human being whom you have picked up—gracious knows how. In +Megatherium days properly brought-up children didn’t talk to shabby +strangers in parks. Your thoughtless friend wanted a place where +someone would be glad to have this undesirable stranger. And now here +you are!” + +“I see we are,” said Anthea patiently, looking round on the tall gloom +of the forest. “But why _here?_ Why _now?_” + +“You don’t suppose anyone would want a child like that in _your_ +times—in _your_ towns?” said the Psammead in irritated tones. “You’ve +got your country into such a mess that there’s no room for half your +children—and no one to want them.” + +“That’s not our doing, you know,” said Anthea gently. + +“And bringing me here without any waterproof or anything,” said the +Psammead still more crossly, “when everyone knows how damp and foggy +Ancient Britain was.” + +“Here, take my coat,” said Robert, taking it off. Anthea spread the +coat on the ground and, putting the Psammead on it, folded it round so +that only the eyes and furry ears showed. + +“There,” she said comfortingly. “Now if it does begin to look like +rain, I can cover you up in a minute. Now what are we to do?” + +The others who had stopped holding hands crowded round to hear the +answer to this question. Imogen whispered in an awed tone— + +“Can’t the organ monkey talk neither! I thought it was only parrots!” + +“Do?” replied the Psammead. “I don’t care what you do!” And it drew +head and ears into the tweed covering of Robert’s coat. + +The others looked at each other. + +“It’s only a dream,” said the learned gentleman hopefully; “something +is sure to happen if we can prevent ourselves from waking up.” + +And sure enough, something did. + +The brooding silence of the dark forest was broken by the laughter of +children and the sound of voices. + +“Let’s go and see,” said Cyril. + +“It’s only a dream,” said the learned gentleman to Jane, who hung back; +“if you don’t go with the tide of a dream—if you resist—you wake up, +you know.” + +There was a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a silly +person’s idea of a path. They went along this in Indian file, the +learned gentleman leading. + +Quite soon they came to a large clearing in the forest. There were a +number of houses—huts perhaps you would have called them—with a sort of +mud and wood fence. + +“It’s like the old Egyptian town,” whispered Anthea. + +And it was, rather. + +Some children, with no clothes on at all, were playing what looked like +Ring-o’-Roses or Mulberry Bush. That is to say, they were dancing round +in a ring, holding hands. On a grassy bank several women, dressed in +blue and white robes and tunics of beast-skins sat watching the playing +children. + +The children from Fitzroy Street stood on the fringe of the forest +looking at the games. One woman with long, fair braided hair sat a +little apart from the others, and there was a look in her eyes as she +followed the play of the children that made Anthea feel sad and sorry. + +“None of those little girls is her own little girl,” thought Anthea. + +The little black-clad London child pulled at Anthea’s sleeve. + +“Look,” she said, “that one there—she’s precious like mother; mother’s +“air was somethink lovely, when she “ad time to comb it out. Mother +wouldn’t never a-beat me if she’d lived ’ere—I don’t suppose there’s +e’er a public nearer than Epping, do you, Miss?” + +In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the +forest. The sad-eyed woman saw her. She stood up, her thin face lighted +up with a radiance like sunrise, her long, lean arms stretched towards +the London child. + +“Imogen!” she cried—at least the word was more like that than any other +word—“Imogen!” + +There was a moment of great silence; the naked children paused in their +play, the women on the bank stared anxiously. + +“Oh, it _is_ mother—it _is!_” cried Imogen-from-London, and rushed +across the cleared space. She and her mother clung together—so closely, +so strongly that they stood an instant like a statue carved in stone. + +Then the women crowded round. + +“It _is_ my Imogen!” cried the woman. + +“Oh it is! And she wasn’t eaten by wolves. She’s come back to me. Tell +me, my darling, how did you escape? Where have you been? Who has fed +and clothed you?” + +“I don’t know nothink,” said Imogen. + +“Poor child!” whispered the women who crowded round, “the terror of the +wolves has turned her brain.” + +“But you know _me?_” said the fair-haired woman. + +And Imogen, clinging with black-clothed arms to the bare neck, +answered— + +“Oh, yes, mother, I know _you_ right ’nough.” + +“What is it? What do they say?” the learned gentleman asked anxiously. + +“You wished to come where someone wanted the child,” said the Psammead. +“The child says this is her mother.” + +“And the mother?” + +“You can see,” said the Psammead. + +“But is she really? Her child, I mean?” + +“Who knows?” said the Psammead; “but each one fills the empty place in +the other’s heart. It is enough.” + +“Oh,” said the learned gentleman, “this is a good dream. I wish the +child might stay in the dream.” + +The Psammead blew itself out and granted the wish. So Imogen’s future +was assured. She had found someone to want her. + +“If only all the children that no one wants,” began the learned +gentleman—but the woman interrupted. She came towards them. + +“Welcome, all!” she cried. “I am the Queen, and my child tells me that +you have befriended her; and this I well believe, looking on your +faces. Your garb is strange, but faces I can read. The child is +bewitched, I see that well, but in this she speaks truth. Is it not +so?” + +The children said it wasn’t worth mentioning. + +I wish you could have seen all the honours and kindnesses lavished on +the children and the learned gentleman by those ancient Britons. You +would have thought, to see them, that a child was something to make a +fuss about, not a bit of rubbish to be hustled about the streets and +hidden away in the Workhouse. It wasn’t as grand as the entertainment +at Babylon, but somehow it was more satisfying. + +“I think you children have some wonderful influence on me,” said the +learned gentleman. “I never dreamed such dreams before I knew you.” + +It was when they were alone that night under the stars where the +Britons had spread a heap Of dried fern for them to sleep on, that +Cyril spoke. + +“Well,” he said, “we’ve made it all right for Imogen, and had a jolly +good time. I vote we get home again before the fighting begins.” + +“What fighting?” asked Jane sleepily. + +“Why, Julius Caesar, you little goat,” replied her kind brother. “Don’t +you see that if this is the year fifty-five, Julius Caesar may happen +at any moment.” + +“I thought you liked Caesar,” said Robert. + +“So I do—in the history. But that’s different from being killed by his +soldiers.” + +“If we saw Caesar we might persuade him not to,” said Anthea. + +“_You_ persuade _Caesar_,” Robert laughed. + +The learned gentleman, before anyone could stop him, said, “I only wish +we could see Caesar some time.” + +And, of course, in just the little time the Psammead took to blow +itself out for wish-giving, the five, or six counting the Psammead, +found themselves in Caesar’s camp, just outside Caesar’s tent. And they +saw Caesar. The Psammead must have taken advantage of the loose wording +of the learned gentleman’s wish, for it was not the same time of day as +that on which the wish had been uttered among the dried ferns. It was +sunset, and the great man sat on a chair outside his tent gazing over +the sea towards Britain—everyone knew without being told that it was +towards Britain. Two golden eagles on the top of posts stood on each +side of the tent, and on the flaps of the tent which was very gorgeous +to look at were the letters S.P.Q.R. + +The great man turned unchanged on the newcomers the august glance that +he had turned on the violet waters of the Channel. Though they had +suddenly appeared out of nothing, Caesar never showed by the faintest +movement of an eyelid, by the least tightening of that firm mouth, that +they were not some long expected embassy. He waved a calm hand towards +the sentinels, who sprang weapons in hand towards the newcomers. + +“Back!” he said in a voice that thrilled like music. “Since when has +Caesar feared children and students?” + +To the children he seemed to speak in the only language they knew; but +the learned gentleman heard—in rather a strange accent, but quite +intelligibly—the lips of Caesar speaking in the Latin tongue, and in +that tongue, a little stiffly, he answered— + +“It is a dream, O Caesar.” + +“A dream?” repeated Caesar. “What is a dream?” + +“This,” said the learned gentleman. + +“Not it,” said Cyril, “it’s a sort of magic. We come out of another +time and another place.” + +“And we want to ask you not to trouble about conquering Britain,” said +Anthea; “it’s a poor little place, not worth bothering about.” + +“Are you from Britain?” the General asked. “Your clothes are uncouth, +but well woven, and your hair is short as the hair of Roman citizens, +not long like the hair of barbarians, yet such I deem you to be.” + +“We’re not,” said Jane with angry eagerness; “we’re not barbarians at +all. We come from the country where the sun never sets, and we’ve read +about you in books; and our country’s full of fine things—St Paul’s, +and the Tower of London, and Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition, and—” + +Then the others stopped her. + +“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Robert in a bitter undertone. + +Caesar looked at the children a moment in silence. Then he called a +soldier and spoke with him apart. Then he said aloud— + +“You three elder children may go where you will within the camp. Few +children are privileged to see the camp of Caesar. The student and the +smaller girl-child will remain here with me.” + +Nobody liked this; but when Caesar said a thing that thing was so, and +there was an end to it. So the three went. + +Left alone with Jane and the learned gentleman, the great Roman found +it easy enough to turn them inside out. But it was not easy, even for +him, to make head or tail of the insides of their minds when he had got +at them. + +The learned gentleman insisted that the whole thing was a dream, and +refused to talk much, on the ground that if he did he would wake up. + +Jane, closely questioned, was full of information about railways, +electric lights, balloons, men-of-war, cannons, and dynamite. + +“And do they fight with swords?” asked the General. + +“Yes, swords and guns and cannons.” + +Caesar wanted to know what guns were. + +“You fire them,” said Jane, “and they go bang, and people fall down +dead.” + +“But what are guns like?” + +Jane found them hard to describe. + +“But Robert has a toy one in his pocket,” she said. So the others were +recalled. + +The boys explained the pistol to Caesar very fully, and he looked at it +with the greatest interest. It was a two-shilling pistol, the one that +had done such good service in the old Egyptian village. + +“I shall cause guns to be made,” said Caesar, “and you will be detained +till I know whether you have spoken the truth. I had just decided that +Britain was not worth the bother of invading. But what you tell me +decides me that it is very much worth while.” + +“But it’s all nonsense,” said Anthea. “Britain is just a savage sort of +island—all fogs and trees and big rivers. But the people are kind. We +know a little girl there named Imogen. And it’s no use your making guns +because you can’t fire them without gunpowder, and that won’t be +invented for hundreds of years, and we don’t know how to make it, and +we can’t tell you. Do go straight home, dear Caesar, and let poor +little Britain alone.” + +“But this other girl-child says—” said Caesar. + +“All Jane’s been telling you is what it’s going to be,” Anthea +interrupted, “hundreds and hundreds of years from now.” + +“The little one is a prophetess, eh?” said Caesar, with a whimsical +look. “Rather young for the business, isn’t she?” + +“You can call her a prophetess if you like,” said Cyril, “but what +Anthea says is true.” + +“Anthea?” said Caesar. “That’s a Greek name.” + +“Very likely,” said Cyril, worriedly. “I say, I do wish you’d give up +this idea of conquering Britain. It’s not worth while, really it +isn’t!” + +“On the contrary,” said Caesar, “what you’ve told me has decided me to +go, if it’s only to find out what Britain is really like. Guards, +detain these children.” + +“Quick,” said Robert, “before the guards begin detaining. We had enough +of that in Babylon.” + +Jane held up the Amulet away from the sunset, and said the word. The +learned gentleman was pushed through and the others more quickly than +ever before passed through the arch back into their own times and the +quiet dusty sitting-room of the learned gentleman. + +It is a curious fact that when Caesar was encamped on the coast of +Gaul—somewhere near Boulogne it was, I believe—he was sitting before +his tent in the glow of the sunset, looking out over the violet waters +of the English Channel. Suddenly he started, rubbed his eyes, and +called his secretary. The young man came quickly from within the tent. + +“Marcus,” said Caesar. “I have dreamed a very wonderful dream. Some of +it I forget, but I remember enough to decide what was not before +determined. Tomorrow the ships that have been brought round from the +Ligeris shall be provisioned. We shall sail for this three-cornered +island. First, we will take but two legions. + +This, if what we have heard be true, should suffice. But if my dream be +true, then a hundred legions will not suffice. For the dream I dreamed +was the most wonderful that ever tormented the brain even of Caesar. +And Caesar has dreamed some strange things in his time.” + +“And if you hadn’t told Caesar all that about how things are now, he’d +never have invaded Britain,” said Robert to Jane as they sat down to +tea. + +“Oh, nonsense,” said Anthea, pouring out; “it was all settled hundreds +of years ago.” + +“I don’t know,” said Cyril. “Jam, please. This about time being only a +thingummy of thought is very confusing. If everything happens at the +same time—” + +“It _can’t!_” said Anthea stoutly, “the present’s the present and the +past’s the past.” + +“Not always,” said Cyril. + +“When we were in the Past the present was the future. Now then!” he +added triumphantly. + +And Anthea could not deny it. + +“I should have liked to see more of the camp,” said Robert. + +“Yes, we didn’t get much for our money—but Imogen is happy, that’s one +thing,” said Anthea. “We left her happy in the Past. I’ve often seen +about people being happy in the Past, in poetry books. I see what it +means now.” + +“It’s not a bad idea,” said the Psammead sleepily, putting its head out +of its bag and taking it in again suddenly, “being left in the Past.” + +Everyone remembered this afterwards, when— + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +BEFORE PHARAOH + + +It was the day after the adventure of Julius Caesar and the Little +Black Girl that Cyril, bursting into the bathroom to wash his hands for +dinner (you have no idea how dirty they were, for he had been playing +shipwrecked mariners all the morning on the leads at the back of the +house, where the water-cistern is), found Anthea leaning her elbows on +the edge of the bath, and crying steadily into it. + +“Hullo!” he said, with brotherly concern, “what’s up now? Dinner’ll be +cold before you’ve got enough salt-water for a bath.” + +“Go away,” said Anthea fiercely. “I hate you! I hate everybody!” + +There was a stricken pause. + +“_I_ didn’t know,” said Cyril tamely. + +“Nobody ever does know anything,” sobbed Anthea. + +“I didn’t know you were waxy. I thought you’d just hurt your fingers +with the tap again like you did last week,” Cyril carefully explained. + +“Oh—fingers!” sneered Anthea through her sniffs. + +“Here, drop it, Panther,” he said uncomfortably. “You haven’t been +having a row or anything?” + +“No,” she said. “Wash your horrid hands, for goodness’ sake, if that’s +what you came for, or go.” + +Anthea was so seldom cross that when she was cross the others were +always more surprised than angry. + +Cyril edged along the side of the bath and stood beside her. He put his +hand on her arm. + +“Dry up, do,” he said, rather tenderly for him. And, finding that +though she did not at once take his advice she did not seem to resent +it, he put his arm awkwardly across her shoulders and rubbed his head +against her ear. + +“There!” he said, in the tone of one administering a priceless cure for +all possible sorrows. “Now, what’s up?” + +“Promise you won’t laugh?” + +“I don’t feel laughish myself,” said Cyril, dismally. + +“Well, then,” said Anthea, leaning her ear against his head, “it’s +Mother.” + +“What’s the matter with Mother?” asked Cyril, with apparent want of +sympathy. “She was all right in her letter this morning.” + +“Yes; but I want her so.” + +“You’re not the only one,” said Cyril briefly, and the brevity of his +tone admitted a good deal. + +“Oh, yes,” said Anthea, “I know. We all want her all the time. But I +want her now most dreadfully, awfully much. I never wanted anything so +much. That Imogen child—the way the ancient British Queen cuddled her +up! And Imogen wasn’t me, and the Queen was Mother. And then her letter +this morning! And about The Lamb liking the salt bathing! And she +bathed him in this very bath the night before she went away—oh, oh, +oh!” + +Cyril thumped her on the back. + +“Cheer up,” he said. “You know my inside thinking that I was doing? +Well, that was partly about Mother. We’ll soon get her back. If you’ll +chuck it, like a sensible kid, and wash your face, I’ll tell you about +it. That’s right. You let me get to the tap. Can’t you stop crying? +Shall I put the door-key down your back?” + +“That’s for noses,” said Anthea, “and I’m not a kid any more than you +are,” but she laughed a little, and her mouth began to get back into +its proper shape. You know what an odd shape your mouth gets into when +you cry in earnest. + +“Look here,” said Cyril, working the soap round and round between his +hands in a thick slime of grey soapsuds. “I’ve been thinking. We’ve +only just _played_ with the Amulet so far. We’ve got to _work_ it +now—work it for all it’s worth. And it isn’t only Mother either. +There’s Father out there all among the fighting. I don’t howl about it, +but I _think_—Oh, bother the soap!” The grey-lined soap had squirted +out under the pressure of his fingers, and had hit Anthea’s chin with +as much force as though it had been shot from a catapult. + +“There now,” she said regretfully, “now I shall have to wash my face.” + +“You’d have had to do that anyway,” said Cyril with conviction. “Now, +my idea’s this. You know missionaries?” + +“Yes,” said Anthea, who did not know a single one. + +“Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, and +hats, and braces, and really useful things—things the savages haven’t +got, and never heard about. And the savages love them for their kind +generousness, and give them pearls, and shells, and ivory, and +cassowaries. And that’s the way—” + +“Wait a sec,” said Anthea, splashing. “I can’t hear what you’re saying. +Shells and—” + +“Shells, and things like that. The great thing is to get people to love +you by being generous. And that’s what we’ve got to do. Next time we go +into the Past we’ll regularly fit out the expedition. You remember how +the Babylonian Queen froze on to that pocket-book? Well, we’ll take +things like that. And offer them in exchange for a sight of the +Amulet.” + +“A sight of it is not much good.” + +“No, silly. But, don’t you see, when we’ve seen it we shall know where +it is, and we can go and take it in the night when everybody is +asleep.” + +“It wouldn’t be stealing, would it?” said Anthea thoughtfully, “because +it will be such an awfully long time ago when we do it. Oh, there’s +that bell again.” + +As soon as dinner was eaten (it was tinned salmon and lettuce, and a +jam tart), and the cloth cleared away, the idea was explained to the +others, and the Psammead was aroused from sand, and asked what it +thought would be good merchandise with which to buy the affection of +say, the Ancient Egyptians, and whether it thought the Amulet was +likely to be found in the Court of Pharaoh. + +But it shook its head, and shot out its snail’s eyes hopelessly. + +“I’m not allowed to play in this game,” it said. “Of course I _could_ +find out in a minute where the thing was, only I mayn’t. But I may go +so far as to own that your idea of taking things with you isn’t a bad +one. And I shouldn’t show them all at once. Take small things and +conceal them craftily about your persons.” + +This advice seemed good. Soon the table was littered over with things +which the children thought likely to interest the Ancient Egyptians. +Anthea brought dolls, puzzle blocks, a wooden tea-service, a green +leather case with _Nécessaire_ written on it in gold letters. Aunt Emma +had once given it to Anthea, and it had then contained scissors, +penknife, bodkin, stiletto, thimble, corkscrew, and glove-buttoner. The +scissors, knife, and thimble, and penknife were, of course, lost, but +the other things were there and as good as new. Cyril contributed lead +soldiers, a cannon, a catapult, a tin-opener, a tie-clip, and a tennis +ball, and a padlock—no key. Robert collected a candle (“I don’t suppose +they ever saw a self-fitting paraffin one,” he said), a penny Japanese +pin-tray, a rubber stamp with his father’s name and address on it, and +a piece of putty. + +Jane added a key-ring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held +cold-cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, and a key—no +lock. + +“We can’t take all this rubbish,” said Robert, with some scorn. “We +must just each choose one thing.” + +The afternoon passed very agreeably in the attempt to choose from the +table the four most suitable objects. But the four children could not +agree what was suitable, and at last Cyril said— + +“Look here, let’s each be blindfolded and reach out, and the first +thing you touch you stick to.” + +This was done. + +Cyril touched the padlock. + +Anthea got the _Nécessaire_. + +Robert clutched the candle. + +Jane picked up the tie-clip. + +“It’s not much,” she said. “I don’t believe Ancient Egyptians wore +ties.” + +“Never mind,” said Anthea. “I believe it’s luckier not to really +choose. In the stories it’s always the thing the wood-cutter’s son +picks up in the forest, and almost throws away because he thinks it’s +no good, that turns out to be the magic thing in the end; or else +someone’s lost it, and he is rewarded with the hand of the King’s +daughter in marriage.” + +“I don’t want any hands in marriage, thank you.” said Cyril firmly. + +“Nor yet me,” said Robert. “It’s always the end of the adventures when +it comes to the marriage hands.” + +“_Are_ we ready?” said Anthea. + +“It _is_ Egypt we’re going to, isn’t it?—nice Egypt?” said Jane. “I +won’t go anywhere I don’t know about—like that dreadful big-wavy +burning-mountain city,” she insisted. + +Then the Psammead was coaxed into its bag. + +“I say,” said Cyril suddenly, “I’m rather sick of kings. And people +notice you so in palaces. Besides the Amulet’s sure to be in a Temple. +Let’s just go among the common people, and try to work ourselves up by +degrees. We might get taken on as Temple assistants.” + +“Like beadles,” said Anthea, “or vergers. They must have splendid +chances of stealing the Temple treasures.” + +“Righto!” was the general rejoinder. The charm was held up. It grew big +once again, and once again the warm golden Eastern light glowed softly +beyond it. + +As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang in +their ears. They went suddenly from the quiet of Fitzroy Street +dining-room into a very angry Eastern crowd, a crowd much too angry to +notice them. They edged through it to the wall of a house and stood +there. The crowd was of men, women, and children. They were of all +sorts of complexions, and pictures of them might have been coloured by +any child with a shilling paint-box. The colours that child would have +used for complexions would have been yellow ochre, red ochre, light +red, sepia, and indian ink. But their faces were painted already—black +eyebrows and lashes, and some red lips. The women wore a sort of +pinafore with shoulder straps, and loose things wound round their heads +and shoulders. The men wore very little clothing—for they were the +working people—and the Egyptian boys and girls wore nothing at all, +unless you count the little ornaments hung on chains round their necks +and waists. The children saw all this before they could hear anything +distinctly. Everyone was shouting so. + +But a voice sounded above the other voices, and presently it was +speaking in a silence. + +“Comrades and fellow workers,” it said, and it was the voice of a tall, +coppery-coloured man who had climbed into a chariot that had been +stopped by the crowd. Its owner had bolted, muttering something about +calling the Guards, and now the man spoke from it. “Comrades and fellow +workers, how long are we to endure the tyranny of our masters, who live +in idleness and luxury on the fruit of our toil? They only give us a +bare subsistence wage, and they live on the fat of the land. We labour +all our lives to keep them in wanton luxury. Let us make an end of it!” + +A roar of applause answered him. + +“How are you going to do it?” cried a voice. + +“You look out,” cried another, “or you’ll get yourself into trouble.” + +“I’ve heard almost every single word of that,” whispered Robert, “in +Hyde Park last Sunday!” + +“Let us strike for more bread and onions and beer, and a longer mid-day +rest,” the speaker went on. “You are tired, you are hungry, you are +thirsty. You are poor, your wives and children are pining for food. The +barns of the rich are full to bursting with the corn we want, the corn +our labour has grown. To the granaries!” + +“To the granaries!” cried half the crowd; but another voice shouted +clear above the tumult, “To Pharaoh! To the King! Let’s present a +petition to the King! He will listen to the voice of the oppressed!” + +For a moment the crowd swayed one way and another—first towards the +granaries and then towards the palace. Then, with a rush like that of +an imprisoned torrent suddenly set free, it surged along the street +towards the palace, and the children were carried with it. Anthea found +it difficult to keep the Psammead from being squeezed very +uncomfortably. + +The crowd swept through the streets of dull-looking houses with few +windows, very high up, across the market where people were not buying +but exchanging goods. In a momentary pause Robert saw a basket of +onions exchanged for a hair comb and five fish for a string of beads. +The people in the market seemed better off than those in the crowd; +they had finer clothes, and more of them. They were the kind of people +who, nowadays, would have lived at Brixton or Brockley. + +“What’s the trouble now?” a languid, large-eyed lady in a crimped, +half-transparent linen dress, with her black hair very much braided and +puffed out, asked of a date-seller. + +“Oh, the working-men—discontented as usual,” the man answered. “Listen +to them. Anyone would think it mattered whether they had a little more +or less to eat. Dregs of society!” said the date-seller. + +“Scum!” said the lady. + +“And I’ve heard _that_ before, too,” said Robert. + +At that moment the voice of the crowd changed, from anger to doubt, +from doubt to fear. There were other voices shouting; they shouted +defiance and menace, and they came nearer very quickly. There was the +rattle of wheels and the pounding of hoofs. A voice shouted, “Guards!” + +“The Guards! The Guards!” shouted another voice, and the crowd of +workmen took up the cry. “The Guards! Pharaoh’s Guards!” And swaying a +little once more, the crowd hung for a moment as it were balanced. Then +as the trampling hoofs came nearer the workmen fled dispersed, up +alleys and into the courts of houses, and the Guards in their embossed +leather chariots swept down the street at the gallop, their wheels +clattering over the stones, and their dark-coloured, blue tunics blown +open and back with the wind of their going. + +“So _that_ riot’s over,” said the crimped-linen-dressed lady; “that’s a +blessing! And did you notice the Captain of the Guard? What a very +handsome man he was, to be sure!” + +The four children had taken advantage of the moment’s pause before the +crowd turned to fly, to edge themselves and drag each other into an +arched doorway. + +Now they each drew a long breath and looked at the others. + +“We’re well out of _that_,” said Cyril. + +“Yes,” said Anthea, “but I do wish the poor men hadn’t been driven back +before they could get to the King. He might have done something for +them.” + +“Not if he was the one in the Bible he wouldn’t,” said Jane. “He had a +hard heart.” + +“Ah, that was the Moses one,” Anthea explained. “The Joseph one was +quite different. I should like to see Pharaoh’s house. I wonder whether +it’s like the Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace.” + +“I thought we decided to try to get taken on in a Temple,” said Cyril +in injured tones. + +“Yes, but we’ve got to know someone first. Couldn’t we make friends +with a Temple doorkeeper—we might give him the padlock or something. I +wonder which are temples and which are palaces,” Robert added, glancing +across the market-place to where an enormous gateway with huge side +buildings towered towards the sky. To right and left of it were other +buildings only a little less magnificent. + +“Did you wish to seek out the Temple of Amen Rā?” asked a soft voice +behind them, “or the Temple of Mut, or the Temple of Khonsu?” + +They turned to find beside them a young man. He was shaved clean from +head to foot, and on his feet were light papyrus sandals. He was +clothed in a linen tunic of white, embroidered heavily in colours. He +was gay with anklets, bracelets, and armlets of gold, richly inlaid. He +wore a ring on his finger, and he had a short jacket of gold embroidery +something like the Zouave soldiers wear, and on his neck was a gold +collar with many amulets hanging from it. But among the amulets the +children could see none like theirs. + +“It doesn’t matter which Temple,” said Cyril frankly. + +“Tell me your mission,” said the young man. “I am a divine father of +the Temple of Amen Rā and perhaps I can help you.” + +“Well,” said Cyril, “we’ve come from the great Empire on which the sun +never sets.” + +“I thought somehow that you’d come from some odd, out-of-the-way spot,” +said the priest with courtesy. + +“And we’ve seen a good many palaces. We thought we should like to see a +Temple, for a change,” said Robert. + +The Psammead stirred uneasily in its embroidered bag. + +“Have you brought gifts to the Temple?” asked the priest cautiously. + +“We _have_ got some gifts,” said Cyril with equal caution. “You see +there’s magic mixed up in it. So we can’t tell you everything. But we +don’t want to give our gifts for nothing.” + +“Beware how you insult the god,” said the priest sternly. “I also can +do magic. I can make a waxen image of you, and I can say words which, +as the wax image melts before the fire, will make you dwindle away and +at last perish miserably.” + +“Pooh!” said Cyril stoutly, “that’s nothing. I can make _fire_ itself!” + +“I should jolly well like to see you do it,” said the priest +unbelievingly. + +“Well, you shall,” said Cyril, “nothing easier. Just stand close round +me.” + +“Do you need no preparation—no fasting, no incantations?” The priest’s +tone was incredulous. + +“The incantation’s quite short,” said Cyril, taking the hint; “and as +for fasting, it’s not needed in _my_ sort of magic. Union Jack, +Printing Press, Gunpowder, Rule Britannia! Come, Fire, at the end of +this little stick!” + +He had pulled a match from his pocket, and as he ended the incantation +which contained no words that it seemed likely the Egyptian had ever +heard he stooped in the little crowd of his relations and the priest +and struck the match on his boot. He stood up, shielding the flame with +one hand. + +“See?” he said, with modest pride. “Here, take it into your hand.” + +“No, thank you,” said the priest, swiftly backing. “Can you do that +again?” + +“Yes.” + +“Then come with me to the great double house of Pharaoh. He loves good +magic, and he will raise you to honour and glory. There’s no need of +secrets between initiates,” he went on confidentially. “The fact is, I +am out of favour at present owing to a little matter of failure of +prophecy. I told him a beautiful princess would be sent to him from +Syria, and, lo! a woman thirty years old arrived. But she _was_ a +beautiful woman not so long ago. Time is only a mode of thought, you +know.” + +The children thrilled to the familiar words. + +“So you know that too, do you?” said Cyril. + +“It is part of the mystery of all magic, is it not?” said the priest. +“Now if I bring you to Pharaoh the little unpleasantness I spoke of +will be forgotten. And I will ask Pharaoh, the Great House, Son of the +Sun, and Lord of the South and North, to decree that you shall lodge in +the Temple. Then you can have a good look round, and teach me your +magic. And I will teach you mine.” + +This idea seemed good—at least it was better than any other which at +that moment occurred to anybody, so they followed the priest through +the city. + +The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the priest +explained, were built within walls twenty to twenty-five feet high, and +such windows as showed in the walls were very high up. The tops of +palm-trees showed above the walls. The poor people’s houses were little +square huts with a door and two windows, and smoke coming out of a hole +in the back. + +“The poor Egyptians haven’t improved so very much in their building +since the first time we came to Egypt,” whispered Cyril to Anthea. + +The huts were roofed with palm branches, and everywhere there were +chickens, and goats, and little naked children kicking about in the +yellow dust. On one roof was a goat, who had climbed up and was eating +the dry palm-leaves with snorts and head-tossings of delight. Over +every house door was some sort of figure or shape. + +“Amulets,” the priest explained, “to keep off the evil eye.” + +“I don’t think much of your ‘nice Egypt’,” Robert whispered to Jane; +“it’s simply not a patch on Babylon.” + +“Ah, you wait till you see the palace,” Jane whispered back. + +The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they had yet +seen that day, though it would have made but a poor show beside that of +the Babylonian King. They came to it through a great square pillared +doorway of sandstone that stood in a high brick wall. The shut doors +were of massive cedar, with bronze hinges, and were studded with bronze +nails. At the side was a little door and a wicket gate, and through +this the priest led the children. He seemed to know a word that made +the sentries make way for him. + +Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of trees +and flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus flowers at +the margin, and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and looking, as Jane +said, quite modern. + +“The guard-chamber, the store-houses, the queen’s house,” said the +priest, pointing them out. + +They passed through open courtyards, paved with flat stones, and the +priest whispered to a guard at a great inner gate. + +“We are fortunate,” he said to the children, “Pharaoh is even now in +the Court of Honour. Now, don’t forget to be overcome with respect and +admiration. It won’t do any harm if you fall flat on your faces. And +whatever you do, don’t speak until you’re spoken to.” + +“There used to be that rule in our country,” said Robert, “when my +father was a little boy.” + +At the outer end of the great hall a crowd of people were arguing with +and even shoving the Guards, who seemed to make it a rule not to let +anyone through unless they were bribed to do it. The children heard +several promises of the utmost richness, and wondered whether they +would ever be kept. + +All round the hall were pillars of painted wood. The roof was of cedar, +gorgeously inlaid. About half-way up the hall was a wide, shallow step +that went right across the hall; then a little farther on another; and +then a steep flight of narrower steps, leading right up to the throne +on which Pharaoh sat. He sat there very splendid, his red and white +double crown on his head, and his sceptre in his hand. The throne had a +canopy of wood and wooden pillars painted in bright colours. On a low, +broad bench that ran all round the hall sat the friends, relatives, and +courtiers of the King, leaning on richly-covered cushions. + +The priest led the children up the steps till they all stood before the +throne; and then, suddenly, he fell on his face with hands +outstretched. The others did the same, Anthea falling very carefully +because of the Psammead. + +“Raise them,” said the voice of Pharaoh, “that they may speak to me.” + +The officers of the King’s household raised them. + +“Who are these strangers?” Pharaoh asked, and added very crossly, “And +what do you mean, Rekh-marā, by daring to come into my presence while +your innocence is not established?” + +“Oh, great King,” said the young priest, “you are the very image of Rā, +and the likeness of his son Horus in every respect. You know the +thoughts of the hearts of the gods and of men, and you have divined +that these strangers are the children of the children of the vile and +conquered Kings of the Empire where the sun never sets. They know a +magic not known to the Egyptians. And they come with gifts in their +hands as tribute to Pharaoh, in whose heart is the wisdom of the gods, +and on his lips their truth.” + +“That is all very well,” said Pharaoh, “but where are the gifts?” + +The children, bowing as well as they could in their embarrassment at +finding themselves the centre of interest in a circle more grand, more +golden and more highly coloured than they could have imagined possible, +pulled out the padlock, the _Nécessaire_, and the tie-clip. “But it’s +not tribute all the same,” Cyril muttered. “England doesn’t pay +tribute!” + +Pharaoh examined all the things with great interest when the chief of +the household had taken them up to him. “Deliver them to the Keeper of +the Treasury,” he said to one near him. And to the children he said— + +“A small tribute, truly, but strange, and not without worth. And the +magic, O Rekh-marā?” + +“These unworthy sons of a conquered nation...” began Rekh-marā. + +“Nothing of the kind!” Cyril whispered angrily. + +“... of a vile and conquered nation, can make fire to spring from dry +wood—in the sight of all.” + +“I should jolly well like to see them do it,” said Pharaoh, just as the +priest had done. + +So Cyril, without more ado, did it. + +“Do more magic,” said the King, with simple appreciation. + +“He cannot do any more magic,” said Anthea suddenly, and all eyes were +turned on her, “because of the voice of the free people who are +shouting for bread and onions and beer and a long mid-day rest. If the +people had what they wanted, he could do more.” + +“A rude-spoken girl,” said Pharaoh. “But give the dogs what they want,” +he said, without turning his head. “Let them have their rest and their +extra rations. There are plenty of slaves to work.” + +A richly-dressed official hurried out. + +“You will be the idol of the people,” Rekh-marā whispered joyously; +“the Temple of Amen will not contain their offerings.” + +Cyril struck another match, and all the court was overwhelmed with +delight and wonder. And when Cyril took the candle from his pocket and +lighted it with the match, and then held the burning candle up before +the King the enthusiasm knew no bounds. + +“Oh, greatest of all, before whom sun and moon and stars bow down,” +said Rekh-marā insinuatingly, “am I pardoned? Is my innocence made +plain?” + +“As plain as it ever will be, I daresay,” said Pharaoh shortly. “Get +along with you. You are pardoned. Go in peace.” The priest went with +lightning swiftness. + +“And what,” said the King suddenly, “is it that moves in that sack? + +Show me, oh strangers.” + +There was nothing for it but to show the Psammead. + +“Seize it,” said Pharaoh carelessly. “A very curious monkey. It will be +a nice little novelty for my wild beast collection.” + +And instantly, the entreaties of the children availing as little as the +bites of the Psammead, though both bites and entreaties were fervent, +it was carried away from before their eyes. + +“Oh, _do_ be careful!” cried Anthea. “At least keep it dry! Keep it in +its sacred house!” + +She held up the embroidered bag. + +“It’s a magic creature,” cried Robert; “it’s simply priceless!” + +“You’ve no right to take it away,” cried Jane incautiously. “It’s a +shame, a barefaced robbery, that’s what it is!” + +There was an awful silence. Then Pharaoh spoke. + +“Take the sacred house of the beast from them,” he said, “and imprison +all. Tonight after supper it may be our pleasure to see more magic. +Guard them well, and do not torture them—yet!” + +“Oh, dear!” sobbed Jane, as they were led away. “I knew exactly what it +would be! Oh, I wish you hadn’t!” + +“Shut up, silly,” said Cyril. “You know you _would_ come to Egypt. It +was your own idea entirely. Shut up. It’ll be all right.” + +“I thought we should play ball with queens,” sobbed Jane, “and have no +end of larks! And now everything’s going to be perfectly horrid!” + +The room they were shut up in _was_ a room, and not a dungeon, as the +elder ones had feared. That, as Anthea said, was one comfort. There +were paintings on the wall that at any other time would have been most +interesting. And a sort of low couch, and chairs. + +When they were alone Jane breathed a sigh of relief. + +“Now we can get home all right,” she said. + +“And leave the Psammead?” said Anthea reproachfully. + +“Wait a sec. I’ve got an idea,” said Cyril. He pondered for a few +moments. Then he began hammering on the heavy cedar door. It opened, +and a guard put in his head. + +“Stop that row,” he said sternly, “or—” + +“Look here,” Cyril interrupted, “it’s very dull for you isn’t it? Just +doing nothing but guard us. Wouldn’t you like to see some magic? We’re +not too proud to do it for you. Wouldn’t you like to see it?” + +“I don’t mind if I do,” said the guard. + +“Well then, you get us that monkey of ours that was taken away, and +we’ll show you.” + +“How do I know you’re not making game of me?” asked the soldier. +“Shouldn’t wonder if you only wanted to get the creature so as to set +it on me. I daresay its teeth and claws are poisonous.” + +“Well, look here,” said Robert. “You see we’ve got nothing with us? You +just shut the door, and open it again in five minutes, and we’ll have +got a magic—oh, I don’t know—a magic flower in a pot for you.” + +“If you can do that you can do anything,” said the soldier, and he went +out and barred the door. + +Then, of course, they held up the Amulet. They found the East by +holding it up, and turning slowly till the Amulet began to grow big, +walked home through it, and came back with a geranium in full scarlet +flower from the staircase window of the Fitzroy Street house. + +“Well!” said the soldier when he came in. “I really am—!” + +“We can do much more wonderful things than that—oh, ever so much,” said +Anthea persuasively, “if we only have our monkey. And here’s twopence +for yourself.” + +The soldier looked at the twopence. + +“What’s this?” he said. + +Robert explained how much simpler it was to pay money for things than +to exchange them as the people were doing in the market. Later on the +soldier gave the coins to his captain, who, later still, showed them to +Pharaoh, who of course kept them and was much struck with the idea. +That was really how coins first came to be used in Egypt. You will not +believe this, I daresay, but really, if you believe the rest of the +story, I don’t see why you shouldn’t believe this as well. + +“I say,” said Anthea, struck by a sudden thought, “I suppose it’ll be +all right about those workmen? The King won’t go back on what he said +about them just because he’s angry with us?” + +“Oh, no,” said the soldier, “you see, he’s rather afraid of magic. +He’ll keep to his word right enough.” + +“Then _that’s_ all right,” said Robert; and Anthea said softly and +coaxingly— + +“Ah, _do_ get us the monkey, and then you’ll see some lovely magic. +Do—there’s a nice, kind soldier.” + +“I don’t know where they’ve put your precious monkey, but if I can get +another chap to take on my duty here I’ll see what I can do,” he said +grudgingly, and went out. + +“Do you mean,” said Robert, “that we’re going off without even _trying_ +for the other half of the Amulet?” + +“I really think we’d better,” said Anthea tremulously. + +“Of course the other half of the Amulet’s here somewhere or our half +wouldn’t have brought us here. I do wish we could find it. It is a pity +we don’t know any _real_ magic. Then we could find out. I do wonder +where it is—exactly.” + +If they had only known it, something very like the other half of the +Amulet was very near them. It hung round the neck of someone, and that +someone was watching them through a chink, high up in the wall, +specially devised for watching people who were imprisoned. But they did +not know. + +There was nearly an hour of anxious waiting. They tried to take an +interest in the picture on the wall, a picture of harpers playing very +odd harps and women dancing at a feast. They examined the painted +plaster floor, and the chairs were of white painted wood with coloured +stripes at intervals. + +But the time went slowly, and everyone had time to think of how Pharaoh +had said, “Don’t torture them—_yet_.” + +“If the worst comes to the worst,” said Cyril, “we must just bunk, and +leave the Psammead. I believe it can take care of itself well enough. +They won’t kill it or hurt it when they find it can speak and give +wishes. They’ll build it a temple, I shouldn’t wonder.” + +“I couldn’t bear to go without it,” said Anthea, “and Pharaoh said +‘After supper’, that won’t be just yet. And the soldier _was_ curious. +I’m sure we’re all right for the present.” + +All the same, the sounds of the door being unbarred seemed one of the +prettiest sounds possible. + +“Suppose he hasn’t got the Psammead?” whispered Jane. + +But that doubt was set at rest by the Psammead itself; for almost +before the door was open it sprang through the chink of it into +Anthea’s arms, shivering and hunching up its fur. + +“Here’s its fancy overcoat,” said the soldier, holding out the bag, +into which the Psammead immediately crept. + +“Now,” said Cyril, “what would you like us to do? Anything you’d like +us to get for you?” + +“Any little trick you like,” said the soldier. “If you can get a +strange flower blooming in an earthenware vase you can get anything, I +suppose,” he said. “I just wish I’d got two men’s loads of jewels from +the King’s treasury. That’s what I’ve always wished for.” + +At the word “_wish_” the children knew that the Psammead would attend +to _that_ bit of magic. It did, and the floor was littered with a +spreading heap of gold and precious stones. + +“Any other little trick?” asked Cyril loftily. “Shall we become +invisible? Vanish?” + +“Yes, if you like,” said the soldier; “but not through the door, you +don’t.” + +He closed it carefully and set his broad Egyptian back against it. + +“No! no!” cried a voice high up among the tops of the tall wooden +pillars that stood against the wall. There was a sound of someone +moving above. + +The soldier was as much surprised as anybody. + +“That’s magic, if you like,” he said. + +And then Jane held up the Amulet, uttering the word of Power. At the +sound of it and at the sight of the Amulet growing into the great arch +the soldier fell flat on his face among the jewels with a cry of awe +and terror. + +The children went through the arch with a quickness born of long +practice. But Jane stayed in the middle of the arch and looked back. + +The others, standing on the dining-room carpet in Fitzroy Street, +turned and saw her still in the arch. “Someone’s holding her,” cried +Cyril. “We must go back.” + +But they pulled at Jane’s hands just to see if she would come, and, of +course, she did come. + +Then, as usual, the arch was little again and there they all were. + +“Oh, I do wish you hadn’t!” Jane said crossly. “It _was_ so +interesting. The priest had come in and he was kicking the soldier, and +telling him he’d done it now, and they must take the jewels and flee +for their lives.” + +“And did they?” + +“I don’t know. You interfered,” said Jane ungratefully. “I _should_ +have liked to see the last of it.” + +As a matter of fact, none of them had seen the last of it—if by “it” +Jane meant the adventure of the Priest and the Soldier. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY + + +“Look here, said Cyril, sitting on the dining-table and swinging his +legs; “I really have got it.” + +“Got what?” was the not unnatural rejoinder of the others. + +Cyril was making a boat with a penknife and a piece of wood, and the +girls were making warm frocks for their dolls, for the weather was +growing chilly. + +“Why, don’t you see? It’s really not any good our going into the Past +looking for that Amulet. The Past’s as full of different times as—as +the sea is of sand. We’re simply bound to hit upon the wrong time. We +might spend our lives looking for the Amulet and never see a sight of +it. Why, it’s the end of September already. It’s like looking for a +needle in—” + +“A bottle of hay—I know,” interrupted Robert; “but if we don’t go on +doing that, what ARE we to do?” + +“That’s just it,” said Cyril in mysterious accents. “Oh, _bother!_” + +Old Nurse had come in with the tray of knives, forks, and glasses, and +was getting the tablecloth and table-napkins out of the chiffonier +drawer. + +“It’s always meal-times just when you come to anything interesting.” + +“And a nice interesting handful _you’d_ be, Master Cyril,” said old +Nurse, “if I wasn’t to bring your meals up to time. Don’t you begin +grumbling now, fear you get something to grumble _at_.” + +“I wasn’t grumbling,” said Cyril quite untruly; “but it does always +happen like that.” + +“You deserve to _have_ something happen,” said old Nurse. “Slave, +slave, slave for you day and night, and never a word of thanks. ...” + +“Why, you do everything beautifully,” said Anthea. + +“It’s the first time any of you’s troubled to say so, anyhow,” said +Nurse shortly. + +“What’s the use of _saying?_” inquired Robert. “We _eat_ our meals fast +enough, and almost always two helps. _That_ ought to show you!” + +“Ah!” said old Nurse, going round the table and putting the knives and +forks in their places; “you’re a man all over, Master Robert. There was +my poor Green, all the years he lived with me I never could get more +out of him than ‘It’s all right!’ when I asked him if he’d fancied his +dinner. And yet, when he lay a-dying, his last words to me was, ‘Maria, +you was always a good cook!’” She ended with a trembling voice. + +“And so you are,” cried Anthea, and she and Jane instantly hugged her. + +When she had gone out of the room Anthea said— + +“I know exactly how she feels. Now, look here! Let’s do a penance to +show we’re sorry we didn’t think about telling her before what nice +cooking she does, and what a dear she is.” + +“Penances are silly,” said Robert. + +“Not if the penance is something to please someone else. I didn’t mean +old peas and hair shirts and sleeping on the stones. I mean we’ll make +her a sorry-present,” explained Anthea. “Look here! I vote Cyril +doesn’t tell us his idea until we’ve done something for old Nurse. It’s +worse for us than him,” she added hastily, “because he knows what it is +and we don’t. Do you all agree?” + +The others would have been ashamed not to agree, so they did. It was +not till quite near the end of dinner—mutton fritters and blackberry +and apple pie—that out of the earnest talk of the four came an idea +that pleased everybody and would, they hoped, please Nurse. + +Cyril and Robert went out with the taste of apple still in their mouths +and the purple of blackberries on their lips—and, in the case of +Robert, on the wristband as well—and bought a big sheet of cardboard at +the stationers. Then at the plumber’s shop, that has tubes and pipes +and taps and gas-fittings in the window, they bought a pane of glass +the same size as the cardboard. The man cut it with a very interesting +tool that had a bit of diamond at the end, and he gave them, out of his +own free generousness, a large piece of putty and a small piece of +glue. + +While they were out the girls had floated four photographs of the four +children off their cards in hot water. These were now stuck in a row +along the top of the cardboard. Cyril put the glue to melt in a jampot, +and put the jampot in a saucepan and saucepan on the fire, while Robert +painted a wreath of poppies round the photographs. He painted rather +well and very quickly, and poppies are easy to do if you’ve once been +shown how. Then Anthea drew some printed letters and Jane coloured +them. The words were: + +“With all our loves to shew +We like the thigs to eat.” + + +And when the painting was dry they all signed their names at the bottom +and put the glass on, and glued brown paper round the edge and over the +back, and put two loops of tape to hang it up by. + +Of course everyone saw when too late that there were not enough letters +in “things”, so the missing “n”was put in. It was impossible, of +course, to do the whole thing over again for just one letter. + +“There!” said Anthea, placing it carefully, face up, under the sofa. +“It’ll be hours before the glue’s dry. Now, Squirrel, fire ahead!” + +“Well, then,” said Cyril in a great hurry, rubbing at his gluey hands +with his pocket handkerchief. “What I mean to say is this.” + +There was a long pause. + +“Well,” said Robert at last, “_what_ is it that you mean to say?” + +“It’s like this,” said Cyril, and again stopped short. + +“Like _what?_” asked Jane. + +“How can I tell you if you will all keep on interrupting?” said Cyril +sharply. + +So no one said any more, and with wrinkled frowns he arranged his +ideas. + +“Look here,” he said, “what I really mean is—we can remember now what +we did when we went to look for the Amulet. And if we’d found it we +should remember that too.” + +“Rather!” said Robert. “Only, you see we haven’t.” + +“But in the future we shall have.” + +“Shall we, though?” said Jane. + +“Yes—unless we’ve been made fools of by the Psammead. So then, where we +want to go to is where we shall remember about where we did find it.” + +“I see,” said Robert, but he didn’t. + +“_I_ don’t,” said Anthea, who did, very nearly. “Say it again, +Squirrel, and very slowly.” + +“If,” said Cyril, very slowly indeed, “we go into the future—after +we’ve found the Amulet—” + +“But we’ve got to find it first,” said Jane. + +“Hush!” said Anthea. + +“There will be a future,” said Cyril, driven to greater clearness by +the blank faces of the other three, “there will be a time _after_ we’ve +found it. Let’s go into _that_ time—and then we shall remember _how_ we +found it. And then we can go back and do the finding really.” + +“I see,” said Robert, and this time he did, and I hope _you_ do. + +“Yes,” said Anthea. “Oh, Squirrel, how clever of you!” + +“But will the Amulet work both ways?” inquired Robert. + +“It ought to,” said Cyril, “if time’s only a thingummy of whatsitsname. +Anyway we might try.” + +“Let’s put on our best things, then,” urged Jane. “You know what people +say about progress and the world growing better and brighter. I expect +people will be awfully smart in the future.” + +“All right,” said Anthea, “we should have to wash anyway, I’m all thick +with glue.” + +When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up. + +“We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we’ve found +it,” said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They walked through +the big arch of the charm straight into the British Museum. They knew +it at once, and there, right in front of them, under a glass case, was +the Amulet—their own half of it, as well as the other half they had +never been able to find—and the two were joined by a pin of red stone +that formed a hinge. + +“Oh, glorious!” cried Robert. “Here it is!” + +“Yes,” said Cyril, very gloomily, “here it is. But we can’t get it +out.” + +“No,” said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of Babylon had +found it to get anything out of the glass cases in the Museum—except by +Psammead magic, and then she hadn’t been able to take anything away +with her; “no—but we remember where we got it, and we can—” + +“Oh, _do_ we?” interrupted Cyril bitterly, “do _you_ remember where we +got it?” + +“No,” said Robert, “I don’t exactly, now I come to think of it.” + +Nor did any of the others! + +“But _why_ can’t we?” said Jane. + +“Oh, _I_ don’t know,” Cyril’s tone was impatient, “some silly old +enchanted rule I suppose. I wish people would teach you magic at school +like they do sums—or instead of. It would be some use having an Amulet +then.” + +“I wonder how far we are in the future,” said Anthea; the Museum looks +just the same, only lighter and brighter, somehow.” + +“Let’s go back and try the Past again,” said Robert. + +“Perhaps the Museum people could tell us how we got it,” said Anthea +with sudden hope. There was no one in the room, but in the next +gallery, where the Assyrian things are and still were, they found a +kind, stout man in a loose, blue gown, and stockinged legs. + +“Oh, they’ve got a new uniform, how pretty!” said Jane. + +When they asked him their question he showed them a label on the case. +It said, “From the collection of—.” A name followed, and it was the +name of the learned gentleman who, among themselves, and to his face +when he had been with them at the other side of the Amulet, they had +called Jimmy. + +“_That’s_ not much good,” said Cyril, “thank you.” + +“How is it you’re not at school?” asked the kind man in blue. “Not +expelled for long I hope?” + +“We’re not expelled at all,” said Cyril rather warmly. + +“Well, I shouldn’t do it again, if I were you,” said the man, and they +could see he did not believe them. There is no company so little +pleasing as that of people who do not believe you. + +“Thank you for showing us the label,” said Cyril. And they came away. + +As they came through the doors of the Museum they blinked at the sudden +glory of sunlight and blue sky. The houses opposite the Museum were +gone. Instead there was a big garden, with trees and flowers and smooth +green lawns, and not a single notice to tell you not to walk on the +grass and not to destroy the trees and shrubs and not to pick the +flowers. There were comfortable seats all about, and arbours covered +with roses, and long, trellised walks, also rose-covered. Whispering, +splashing fountains fell into full white marble basins, white statues +gleamed among the leaves, and the pigeons that swept about among the +branches or pecked on the smooth, soft gravel were not black and +tumbled like the Museum pigeons are now, but bright and clean and sleek +as birds of new silver. A good many people were sitting on the seats, +and on the grass babies were rolling and kicking and playing—with very +little on indeed. Men, as well as women, seemed to be in charge of the +babies and were playing with them. + +“It’s like a lovely picture,” said Anthea, and it was. For the people’s +clothes were of bright, soft colours and all beautifully and very +simply made. No one seemed to have any hats or bonnets, but there were +a great many Japanese-looking sunshades. And among the trees were hung +lamps of coloured glass. + +“I expect they light those in the evening,” said Jane. “I _do_ wish we +lived in the future!” + +They walked down the path, and as they went the people on the benches +looked at the four children very curiously, but not rudely or unkindly. +The children, in their turn, looked—I hope they did not stare—at the +faces of these people in the beautiful soft clothes. Those faces were +worth looking at. Not that they were all handsome, though even in the +matter of handsomeness they had the advantage of any set of people the +children had ever seen. But it was the expression of their faces that +made them worth looking at. The children could not tell at first what +it was. + +“I know,” said Anthea suddenly. “They’re not worried; that’s what it +is.” + +And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no +one seemed to be anxious, or fretted, and though some did seem to be +sad, not a single one looked worried. + +But though the people looked kind everyone looked so interested in the +children that they began to feel a little shy and turned out of the big +main path into a narrow little one that wound among trees and shrubs +and mossy, dripping springs. + +It was here, in a deep, shadowed cleft between tall cypresses, that +they found the expelled little boy. He was lying face downward on the +mossy turf, and the peculiar shaking of his shoulders was a thing they +had seen, more than once, in each other. So Anthea kneeled down by him +and said— + +“What’s the matter?” + +“I’m expelled from school,” said the boy between his sobs. + +This was serious. People are not expelled for light offences. + +“Do you mind telling us what you’d done?” + +“I—I tore up a sheet of paper and threw it about in the playground,” +said the child, in the tone of one confessing an unutterable baseness. +“You won’t talk to me any more now you know that,” he added without +looking up. + +“Was that all?” asked Anthea. + +“It’s about enough,” said the child; “and I’m expelled for the whole +day!” + +“I don’t quite understand,” said Anthea, gently. The boy lifted his +face, rolled over, and sat up. + +“Why, whoever on earth are you?” he said. + +“We’re strangers from a far country,” said Anthea. “In our country it’s +not a crime to leave a bit of paper about.” + +“It is here,” said the child. “If grown-ups do it they’re fined. When +we do it we’re expelled for the whole day.” + +“Well, but,” said Robert, “that just means a day’s holiday.” + +“You _must_ come from a long way off,” said the little boy. “A +holiday’s when you all have play and treats and jolliness, all of you +together. On your expelled days no one’ll speak to you. Everyone sees +you’re an Expelleder or you’d be in school.” + +“Suppose you were ill?” + +“Nobody is—hardly. If they are, of course they wear the badge, and +everyone is kind to you. I know a boy that stole his sister’s illness +badge and wore it when he was expelled for a day. _He_ got expelled for +a week for that. It must be awful not to go to school for a week.” + +“Do you _like_ school, then?” asked Robert incredulously. + +“Of course I do. It’s the loveliest place there is. I chose railways +for my special subject this year, there are such splendid models and +things, and now I shall be all behind because of that torn-up paper.” + +“You choose your own subject?” asked Cyril. + +“Yes, of course. Where _did_ you come from? Don’t you know _anything?_” + +“No,” said Jane definitely; “so you’d better tell us.” + +“Well, on Midsummer Day school breaks up and everything’s decorated +with flowers, and you choose your special subject for next year. Of +course you have to stick to it for a year at least. Then there are all +your other subjects, of course, reading, and painting, and the rules of +Citizenship.” + +“Good gracious!” said Anthea. + +“Look here,” said the child, jumping up, “it’s nearly four. The +expelledness only lasts till then. Come home with me. Mother will tell +you all about everything.” + +“Will your mother like you taking home strange children?” asked Anthea. + +“I don’t understand,” said the child, settling his leather belt over +his honey-coloured smock and stepping out with hard little bare feet. +“Come on.” + +So they went. + +The streets were wide and hard and very clean. There were no horses, +but a sort of motor carriage that made no noise. The Thames flowed +between green banks, and there were trees at the edge, and people sat +under them, fishing, for the stream was clear as crystal. Everywhere +there were green trees and there was no smoke. The houses were set in +what seemed like one green garden. + +The little boy brought them to a house, and at the window was a good, +bright mother-face. The little boy rushed in, and through the window +they could see him hugging his mother, then his eager lips moving and +his quick hands pointing. + +A lady in soft green clothes came out, spoke kindly to them, and took +them into the oddest house they had ever seen. It was very bare, there +were no ornaments, and yet every single thing was beautiful, from the +dresser with its rows of bright china, to the thick squares of +Eastern-looking carpet on the floors. I can’t describe that house; I +haven’t the time. And I haven’t heart either, when I think how +different it was from our houses. The lady took them all over it. The +oddest thing of all was the big room in the middle. It had padded walls +and a soft, thick carpet, and all the chairs and tables were padded. +There wasn’t a single thing in it that anyone could hurt itself with. + +“What ever’s this for?—lunatics?” asked Cyril. + +The lady looked very shocked. + +“No! It’s for the children, of course,” she said. “Don’t tell me that +in your country there are no children’s rooms.” + +“There are nurseries,” said Anthea doubtfully, “but the furniture’s all +cornery and hard, like other rooms.” + +“How shocking!” said the lady; “you must be _very_ much behind the +times in your country! Why, the children are more than half of the +people; it’s not much to have one room where they can have a good time +and not hurt themselves.” + +“But there’s no fireplace,” said Anthea. + +“Hot-air pipes, of course,” said the lady. “Why, how could you have a +fire in a nursery? A child might get burned.” + +“In our country,” said Robert suddenly, “more than 3,000 children are +burned to death every year. Father told me,” he added, as if +apologizing for this piece of information, “once when I’d been playing +with fire.” + +The lady turned quite pale. + +“What a frightful place you must live in!” she said. + +“What’s all the furniture padded for?” Anthea asked, hastily turning +the subject. + +“Why, you couldn’t have little tots of two or three running about in +rooms where the things were hard and sharp! They might hurt +themselves.” + +Robert fingered the scar on his forehead where he had hit it against +the nursery fender when he was little. + +“But does everyone have rooms like this, poor people and all?” asked +Anthea. + +“There’s a room like this wherever there’s a child, of course,” said +the lady. “How refreshingly ignorant you are!—no, I don’t mean +ignorant, my dear. Of course, you’re awfully well up in ancient +History. But I see you haven’t done your Duties of Citizenship Course +yet.” + +“But beggars, and people like that?” persisted Anthea “and tramps and +people who haven’t any homes?” + +“People who haven’t any homes?” repeated the lady. “I really _don’t_ +understand what you’re talking about.” + +“It’s all different in our country,” said Cyril carefully; and I have +read it used to be different in London. Usedn’t people to have no homes +and beg because they were hungry? And wasn’t London very black and +dirty once upon a time? And the Thames all muddy and filthy? And narrow +streets, and—” + +“You must have been reading very old-fashioned books,” said the lady. +“Why, all that was in the dark ages! My husband can tell you more about +it than I can. He took Ancient History as one of his special subjects.” + +“I haven’t seen any working people,” said Anthea. + +“Why, we’re all working people,” said the lady; “at least my husband’s +a carpenter.” + +“Good gracious!” said Anthea; “but you’re a lady!” + +“Ah,” said the lady, “that quaint old word! Well, my husband _will_ +enjoy a talk with you. In the dark ages everyone was allowed to have a +smoky chimney, and those nasty horses all over the streets, and all +sorts of rubbish thrown into the Thames. And, of course, the sufferings +of the people will hardly bear thinking of. It’s very learned of you to +know it all. Did _you_ make Ancient History your special subject?” + +“Not exactly,” said Cyril, rather uneasily. “What is the Duties of +Citizenship Course about?” + +“Don’t you _really_ know? Aren’t you pretending—just for fun? Really +not? Well, that course teaches you how to be a good citizen, what you +must do and what you mayn’t do, so as to do your full share of the work +of making your town a beautiful and happy place for people to live in. +There’s a quite simple little thing they teach the tiny children. How +does it go...? + +“I must not steal and I must learn, +Nothing is mine that I do not earn. +I must try in work and play +To make things beautiful every day. +I must be kind to everyone, +And never let cruel things be done. +I must be brave, and I must try +When I am hurt never to cry, +And always laugh as much as I can, +And be glad that I’m going to be a man +To work for my living and help the rest +And never do less than my very best.” + + +“That’s very easy,” said Jane. “_I_ could remember that.” + +“That’s only the very beginning, of course,” said the lady; “there are +heaps more rhymes. There’s the one beginning— + +“I must not litter the beautiful street +With bits of paper or things to eat; +I must not pick the public flowers, +They are not _mine_, but they are _ours_.” + + +“And ‘things to eat’ reminds me—are you hungry? Wells, run and get a +tray of nice things.” + +“Why do you call him ‘Wells’?” asked Robert, as the boy ran off. + +“It’s after the great reformer—surely you’ve heard of _him?_ He lived +in the dark ages, and he saw that what you ought to do is to find out +what you want and then try to get it. Up to then people had always +tried to tinker up what they’d got. We’ve got a great many of the +things he thought of. Then ‘Wells’ means springs of clear water. It’s a +nice name, don’t you think?” + +Here Wells returned with strawberries and cakes and lemonade on a tray, +and everybody ate and enjoyed. + +“Now, Wells,” said the lady, “run off or you’ll be late and not meet +your Daddy.” + +Wells kissed her, waved to the others, and went. + +“Look here,” said Anthea suddenly, “would you like to come to _our_ +country, and see what it’s like? It wouldn’t take you a minute.” + +The lady laughed. But Jane held up the charm and said the word. + +“What a splendid conjuring trick!” cried the lady, enchanted with the +beautiful, growing arch. + +“Go through,” said Anthea. + +The lady went, laughing. But she did not laugh when she found herself, +suddenly, in the dining-room at Fitzroy Street. + +“Oh, what a _horrible_ trick!” she cried. “What a hateful, dark, ugly +place!” + +She ran to the window and looked out. The sky was grey, the street was +foggy, a dismal organ-grinder was standing opposite the door, a beggar +and a man who sold matches were quarrelling at the edge of the pavement +on whose greasy black surface people hurried along, hastening to get to +the shelter of their houses. + +“Oh, look at their faces, their horrible faces!” she cried. “What’s the +matter with them all?” + +“They’re poor people, that’s all,” said Robert. + +“But it’s _not_ all! They’re ill, they’re unhappy, they’re wicked! Oh, +do stop it, there’s dear children. It’s very, very clever. Some sort of +magic-lantern trick, I suppose, like I’ve read of. But _do_ stop it. +Oh! their poor, tired, miserable, wicked faces!” + +The tears were in her eyes. Anthea signed to Jane. The arch grew, they +spoke the words, and pushed the lady through it into her own time and +place, where London is clean and beautiful, and the Thames runs clear +and bright, and the green trees grow, and no one is afraid, or anxious, +or in a hurry. + +There was a silence. Then— + +“I’m glad we went,” said Anthea, with a deep breath. + +“I’ll never throw paper about again as long as I live,” said Robert. + +“Mother always told us not to,” said Jane. + +“I would like to take up the Duties of Citizenship for a special +subject,” said Cyril. “I wonder if Father could put me through it. I +shall ask him when he comes home.” + +“If we’d found the Amulet, Father could be home _now_,” said Anthea, +“and Mother and The Lamb.” + +“Let’s go into the future _again_,” suggested Jane brightly. “Perhaps +we could remember if it wasn’t such an awful way off.” + +So they did. This time they said, “The future, where the Amulet is, not +so far away.” + +And they went through the familiar arch into a large, light room with +three windows. Facing them was the familiar mummy-case. And at a table +by the window sat the learned gentleman. They knew him at once, though +his hair was white. He was one of the faces that do not change with +age. In his hand was the Amulet—complete and perfect. + +He rubbed his other hand across his forehead in the way they were so +used to. + +“Dreams, dreams!” he said; “old age is full of them!” + +“You’ve been in dreams with us before now,” said Robert, “don’t you +remember?” + +“I do, indeed,” said he. The room had many more books than the Fitzroy +Street room, and far more curious and wonderful Assyrian and Egyptian +objects. “The most wonderful dreams I ever had had you in them.” + +“Where,” asked Cyril, “did you get that thing in your hand?” + +“If you weren’t just a dream,” he answered, smiling, you’d remember +that you gave it to me.” + +“But where did we get it?” Cyril asked eagerly. + +“Ah, you never would tell me that,” he said, “You always had your +little mysteries. You dear children! What a difference you made to that +old Bloomsbury house! I wish I could dream you oftener. Now you’re +grown up you’re not like you used to be.” + +“Grown up?” said Anthea. + +The learned gentleman pointed to a frame with four photographs in it. + +“There you are,” he said. + +The children saw four grown-up people’s portraits—two ladies, two +gentlemen—and looked on them with loathing. + +“Shall we grow up like _that?_” whispered Jane. “How perfectly horrid!” + +“If we’re ever like that, we sha’nn’t know it’s horrid, I expect,” +Anthea with some insight whispered back. “You see, you get used to +yourself while you’re changing. It’s—it’s being so sudden makes it seem +so frightful now.” + +The learned gentleman was looking at them with wistful kindness. “Don’t +let me undream you just yet,” he said. There was a pause. + +“Do you remember _when_ we gave you that Amulet?” Cyril asked suddenly. + +“You know, or you would if you weren’t a dream, that it was on the 3rd +December, 1905. I shall never forget _that_ day.” + +“Thank you,” said Cyril, earnestly; “oh, thank you very much.” + +“You’ve got a new room,” said Anthea, looking out of the window, “and +what a lovely garden!” + +“Yes,” said he, “I’m too old now to care even about being near the +Museum. This is a beautiful place. Do you know—I can hardly believe +you’re just a dream, you do look so exactly real. Do you know...” his +voice dropped, “I can say it to _you_, though, of course, if I said it +to anyone that wasn’t a dream they’d call me mad; there was something +about that Amulet you gave me—something very mysterious.” + +“There was that,” said Robert. + +“Ah, I don’t mean your pretty little childish mysteries about where you +got it. But about the thing itself. First, the wonderful dreams I used +to have, after you’d shown me the first half of it! Why, my book on +Atlantis, that I did, was the beginning of my fame and my fortune, too. +And I got it all out of a dream! And then, ‘Britain at the Time of the +Roman Invasion’—that was only a pamphlet, but it explained a lot of +things people hadn’t understood.” + +“Yes,” said Anthea, “it would.” + +“That was the beginning. But after you’d given me the whole of the +Amulet—ah, it was generous of you!—then, somehow, I didn’t need to +theorize, I seemed to _know_ about the old Egyptian civilization. And +they can’t upset my theories”—he rubbed his thin hands and laughed +triumphantly—“they can’t, though they’ve tried. Theories, they call +them, but they’re more like—I don’t know—more like memories. I _know_ +I’m right about the secret rites of the Temple of Amen.” + +“I’m so glad you’re rich,” said Anthea. “You weren’t, you know, at +Fitzroy Street.” + +“Indeed I wasn’t,” said he, “but I am now. This beautiful house and +this lovely garden—I dig in it sometimes; you remember, you used to +tell me to take more exercise? Well, I feel I owe it all to you—and the +Amulet.” + +“I’m so glad,” said Anthea, and kissed him. He started. + +“_That_ didn’t feel like a dream,” he said, and his voice trembled. + +“It isn’t exactly a dream,” said Anthea softly, “it’s all part of the +Amulet—it’s a sort of extra special, real dream, dear Jimmy.” + +“Ah,” said he, “when you call me that, I know I’m dreaming. My little +sister—I dream of her sometimes. But it’s not real like this. Do you +remember the day I dreamed you brought me the Babylonish ring?” + +“We remember it all,” said Robert. “Did you leave Fitzroy Street +because you were too rich for it?” + +“Oh, no!” he said reproachfully. “You know I should never have done +such a thing as that. Of course, I left when your old Nurse died +and—what’s the matter!” + +“Old Nurse _dead?_” said Anthea. “Oh, _no!_” + +“Yes, yes, it’s the common lot. It’s a long time ago now.” + +Jane held up the Amulet in a hand that twittered. + +“Come!” she cried, “oh, come home! She may be dead before we get there, +and then we can’t give it to her. Oh, come!” + +“Ah, don’t let the dream end now!” pleaded the learned gentleman. + +“It must,” said Anthea firmly, and kissed him again. + +“When it comes to people dying,” said Robert, “good-bye! I’m so glad +you’re rich and famous and happy.” + +“_Do_ come!” cried Jane, stamping in her agony of impatience. + +And they went. Old Nurse brought in tea almost as soon as they were +back in Fitzroy Street. As she came in with the tray, the girls rushed +at her and nearly upset her and it. + +“Don’t die!” cried Jane, “oh, don’t!” and Anthea cried, “Dear, ducky, +darling old Nurse, don’t die!” + +“Lord, love you!” said Nurse, “I’m not agoin’ to die yet a while, +please Heaven! Whatever on earth’s the matter with the chicks?” + +“Nothing. Only don’t!” + +She put the tray down and hugged the girls in turn. The boys thumped +her on the back with heartfelt affection. + +“I’m as well as ever I was in my life,” she said. “What nonsense about +dying! You’ve been a sitting too long in the dusk, that’s what it is. +Regular blind man’s holiday. Leave go of me, while I light the gas.” + +The yellow light illuminated four pale faces. + +“We do love you so,” Anthea went on, “and we’ve made you a picture to +show you how we love you. Get it out, Squirrel.” + +The glazed testimonial was dragged out from under the sofa and +displayed. + +“The glue’s not dry yet,” said Cyril, “look out!” + +“What a beauty!” cried old Nurse. “Well, I never! And your pictures and +the beautiful writing and all. Well, I always did say your hearts was +in the right place, if a bit careless at times. Well! I never did! I +don’t know as I was ever pleased better in my life.” + +She hugged them all, one after the other. And the boys did not mind it, +somehow, that day. + +“How is it we can remember all about the future, _now?_” Anthea woke +the Psammead with laborious gentleness to put the question. “How is it +we can remember what we saw in the future, and yet, when we _were_ in +the future, we could not remember the bit of the future that was past +then, the time of finding the Amulet?” + +“Why, what a silly question!” said the Psammead, “of course you cannot +remember what hasn’t happened yet.” + +“But the _future_ hasn’t happened yet,” Anthea persisted, “and we +remember that all right.” + +“Oh, that isn’t what’s happened, my good child,” said the Psammead, +rather crossly, “that’s prophetic vision. And you remember dreams, +don’t you? So why not visions? You never do seem to understand the +simplest thing.” + +It went to sand again at once. + +Anthea crept down in her nightgown to give one last kiss to old Nurse, +and one last look at the beautiful testimonial hanging, by its tapes, +its glue now firmly set, in glazed glory on the wall of the kitchen. + +“Good-night, bless your loving heart,” said old Nurse, “if only you +don’t catch your deather-cold!” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +THE SHIPWRECK ON THE TIN ISLANDS + + +“Blue and red,” said Jane softly, “make purple.” + +“Not always they don’t,” said Cyril, “it has to be crimson lake and +Prussian blue. If you mix Vermilion and Indigo you get the most +loathsome slate colour.” + +“Sepia’s the nastiest colour in the box, I think,” said Jane, sucking +her brush. + +They were all painting. Nurse in the flush of grateful emotion, excited +by Robert’s border of poppies, had presented each of the four with a +shilling paint-box, and had supplemented the gift with a pile of old +copies of the _Illustrated London News_. + +“Sepia,” said Cyril instructively, “is made out of beastly cuttlefish.” + +“Purple’s made out of a fish, as well as out of red and blue,” said +Robert. “Tyrian purple was, I know.” + +“Out of lobsters?” said Jane dreamily. “They’re red when they’re +boiled, and blue when they aren’t. If you mixed live and dead lobsters +you’d get Tyrian purple.” + +“_I_ shouldn’t like to mix anything with a live lobster,” said Anthea, +shuddering. + +“Well, there aren’t any other red and blue fish,” said Jane; “you’d +have to.” + +“I’d rather not have the purple,” said Anthea. + +“The Tyrian purple wasn’t that colour when it came out of the fish, nor +yet afterwards, it wasn’t,” said Robert; “it was scarlet really, and +Roman Emperors wore it. And it wasn’t any nice colour while the fish +had it. It was a yellowish-white liquid of a creamy consistency.” + +“How do you know?” asked Cyril. + +“I read it,” said Robert, with the meek pride of superior knowledge. + +“Where?” asked Cyril. + +“In print,” said Robert, still more proudly meek. + +“You think everything’s true if it’s printed,” said Cyril, naturally +annoyed, “but it isn’t. Father said so. Quite a lot of lies get +printed, especially in newspapers.” + +“You see, as it happens,” said Robert, in what was really a rather +annoying tone, “it wasn’t a newspaper, it was in a book.” + +“How sweet Chinese white is!” said Jane, dreamily sucking her brush +again. + +“I don’t believe it,” said Cyril to Robert. + +“Have a suck yourself,” suggested Robert. + +“I don’t mean about the Chinese white. I mean about the cream fish +turning purple and—” + +“Oh!” cried Anthea, jumping up very quickly, “I’m tired of painting. +Let’s go somewhere by Amulet. I say let’s let _it_ choose.” + +Cyril and Robert agreed that this was an idea. Jane consented to stop +painting because, as she said, Chinese white, though certainly sweet, +gives you a queer feeling in the back of the throat if you paint with +it too long. + +The Amulet was held up. + +“Take us somewhere,” said Jane, “anywhere you like in the Past—but +somewhere where you are.” Then she said the word. + +Next moment everyone felt a queer rocking and swaying—something like +what you feel when you go out in a fishing boat. And that was not +wonderful, when you come to think of it, for it was in a boat that they +found themselves. A queer boat, with high bulwarks pierced with holes +for oars to go through. There was a high seat for the steersman, and +the prow was shaped like the head of some great animal with big, +staring eyes. The boat rode at anchor in a bay, and the bay was very +smooth. The crew were dark, wiry fellows with black beards and hair. +They had no clothes except a tunic from waist to knee, and round caps +with knobs on the top. They were very busy, and what they were doing +was so interesting to the children that at first they did not even +wonder where the Amulet had brought them. + +And the crew seemed too busy to notice the children. They were +fastening rush baskets to a long rope with a great piece of cork at the +end, and in each basket they put mussels or little frogs. Then they +cast out the rope, the baskets sank, but the cork floated. And all +about on the blue water were other boats and all the crews of all the +boats were busy with ropes and baskets and frogs and mussels. + +“Whatever are you doing?” Jane suddenly asked a man who had rather more +clothes than the others, and seemed to be a sort of captain or +overseer. He started and stared at her, but he had seen too many +strange lands to be very much surprised at these queerly-dressed +stowaways. + +“Setting lines for the dye shell-fish,” he said shortly. “How did you +get here?” + +“A sort of magic,” said Robert carelessly. The Captain fingered an +Amulet that hung round his neck. + +“What is this place?” asked Cyril. + +“Tyre, of course,” said the man. Then he drew back and spoke in a low +voice to one of the sailors. + +“Now we shall know about your precious cream-jug fish,” said Cyril. + +“But we never _said_ come to Tyre,” said Jane. + +“The Amulet heard us talking, I expect. I think it’s _most_ obliging of +it,” said Anthea. + +“And the Amulet’s here too,” said Robert. “We ought to be able to find +it in a little ship like this. I wonder which of them’s got it.” + +“Oh—look, look!” cried Anthea suddenly. On the bare breast of one of +the sailors gleamed something red. It was the exact counterpart of +their precious half-Amulet. + +A silence, full of emotion, was broken by Jane. + +“Then we’ve found it!” she said. “Oh do let’s take it and go home!” + +“Easy to say ‘take it’,” said Cyril; “he looks very strong.” + +He did—yet not so strong as the other sailors. + +“It’s odd,” said Anthea musingly, “I do believe I’ve seen that man +somewhere before.” + +“He’s rather like our learned gentleman,” said Robert, “but I’ll tell +you who he’s much more like—” + +At this moment that sailor looked up. His eyes met Robert’s—and Robert +and the others had no longer any doubt as to where they had seen him +before. It was Rekh-marā, the priest who had led them to the palace of +Pharaoh—and whom Jane had looked back at through the arch, when he was +counselling Pharaoh’s guard to take the jewels and fly for his life. + +Nobody was quite pleased, and nobody quite knew why. + +Jane voiced the feelings of all when she said, fingering _their_ Amulet +through the folds of her frock, “We can go back in a minute if anything +nasty happens.” + +For the moment nothing worse happened than an offer of food—figs and +cucumbers it was, and very pleasant. + +“I see,” said the Captain, “that you are from a far country. Since you +have honoured my boat by appearing on it, you must stay here till +morning. Then I will lead you to one of our great ones. He loves +strangers from far lands.” + +“Let’s go home,” Jane whispered, “all the frogs are drowning _now_. I +think the people here are cruel.” + +But the boys wanted to stay and see the lines taken up in the morning. + +“It’s just like eel-pots and lobster-pots,” said Cyril, “the baskets +only open from outside—I vote we stay.” + +So they stayed. + +“That’s Tyre over there,” said the Captain, who was evidently trying to +be civil. He pointed to a great island rock, that rose steeply from the +sea, crowned with huge walls and towers. There was another city on the +mainland. + +“That’s part of Tyre, too,” said the Captain; “it’s where the great +merchants have their pleasure-houses and gardens and farms.” + +“Look, look!” Cyril cried suddenly; “what a lovely little ship!” + +A ship in full sail was passing swiftly through the fishing fleet. The +Captain’s face changed. He frowned, and his eyes blazed with fury. + +“Insolent young barbarian!” he cried. “Do you call the ships of Tyre +_little?_ None greater sail the seas. That ship has been on a three +years’ voyage. She is known in all the great trading ports from here to +the Tin Islands. She comes back rich and glorious. Her very anchor is +of silver.” + +“I’m sure we beg your pardon,” said Anthea hastily. “In our country we +say ‘little’ for a pet name. Your wife might call you her dear little +husband, you know.” + +“I should like to catch her at it,” growled the Captain, but he stopped +scowling. + +“It’s a rich trade,” he went on. “For cloth _once_ dipped, second-best +glass, and the rough images our young artists carve for practice, the +barbarian King in Tessos lets us work the silver mines. We get so much +silver there that we leave them our iron anchors and come back with +silver ones.” + +“How splendid!” said Robert. “Do go on. What’s cloth once dipped?” + +“You _must_ be barbarians from the outer darkness,” said the Captain +scornfully. “All wealthy nations know that our finest stuffs are twice +dyed—dibaptha. They’re only for the robes of kings and priests and +princes.” + +“What do the rich merchants wear,” asked Jane, with interest, “in the +pleasure-houses?” + +“They wear the dibaptha. _Our_ merchants _are_ princes,” scowled the +skipper. + +“Oh, don’t be cross, we do so like hearing about things. We want to +know _all_ about the dyeing,” said Anthea cordially. + +“Oh, you do, do you?” growled the man. “So that’s what you’re here for? +Well, you won’t get the secrets of the dye trade out of _me_.” + +He went away, and everyone felt snubbed and uncomfortable. And all the +time the long, narrow eyes of the Egyptian were watching, watching. +They felt as though he was watching them through the darkness, when +they lay down to sleep on a pile of cloaks. + +Next morning the baskets were drawn up full of what looked like whelk +shells. + +The children were rather in the way, but they made themselves as small +as they could. While the skipper was at the other end of the boat they +did ask one question of a sailor, whose face was a little less unkind +than the others. + +“Yes,” he answered, “this is the dye-fish. It’s a sort of murex—and +there’s another kind that they catch at Sidon and then, of course, +there’s the kind that’s used for the dibaptha. But that’s quite +different. It’s—” + +“Hold your tongue!” shouted the skipper. And the man held it. + +The laden boat was rowed slowly round the end of the island, and was +made fast in one of the two great harbours that lay inside a long +breakwater. The harbour was full of all sorts of ships, so that Cyril +and Robert enjoyed themselves much more than their sisters. The +breakwater and the quays were heaped with bales and baskets, and +crowded with slaves and sailors. Farther along some men were practising +diving. + +“That’s jolly good,” said Robert, as a naked brown body cleft the +water. + +“I should think so,” said the skipper. “The pearl-divers of Persia are +not more skilful. Why, we’ve got a fresh-water spring that comes out at +the bottom of the sea. Our divers dive down and bring up the fresh +water in skin bottles! Can your barbarian divers do as much?” + +“I suppose not,” said Robert, and put away a wild desire to explain to +the Captain the English system of waterworks, pipes, taps, and the +intricacies of the plumbers’ trade. + +As they neared the quay the skipper made a hasty toilet. He did his +hair, combed his beard, put on a garment like a jersey with short +sleeves, an embroidered belt, a necklace of beads, and a big signet +ring. + +“Now,” said he, “I’m fit to be seen. Come along?” + +“Where to?” said Jane cautiously. + +“To Pheles, the great sea-captain, said the skipper, “the man I told +you of, who loves barbarians.” + +Then Rekh-marā came forward, and, for the first time, spoke. + +“I have known these children in another land,” he said. “You know my +powers of magic. It was my magic that brought these barbarians to your +boat. And you know how they will profit you. I read your thoughts. Let +me come with you and see the end of them, and then I will work the +spell I promised you in return for the little experience you have so +kindly given me on your boat.” + +The skipper looked at the Egyptian with some disfavour. + +“So it was _your_ doing,” he said. “I might have guessed it. Well, come +on.” + +So he came, and the girls wished he hadn’t. But Robert whispered— + +“Nonsense—as long as he’s with us we’ve got _some_ chance of the +Amulet. We can always fly if anything goes wrong.” + +The morning was so fresh and bright; their breakfast had been so good +and so unusual; they had actually seen the Amulet round the Egyptian’s +neck. One or two, or all these things, suddenly raised the children’s +spirits. They went off quite cheerfully through the city gate—it was +not arched, but roofed over with a great flat stone—and so through the +street, which smelt horribly of fish and garlic and a thousand other +things even less agreeable. But far worse than the street scents was +the scent of the factory, where the skipper called in to sell his +night’s catch. I wish I could tell you all about that factory, but I +haven’t time, and perhaps after all you aren’t interested in dyeing +works. I will only mention that Robert was triumphantly proved to be +right. The dye _was_ a yellowish-white liquid of a creamy consistency, +and it smelt more strongly of garlic than garlic itself does. + +While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works the +Egyptian came close to the children, and said, suddenly and softly— + +“Trust me.” + +“I wish we could,” said Anthea. + +“You feel,” said the Egyptian, “that I want your Amulet. That makes you +distrust me.” + +“Yes,” said Cyril bluntly. + +“But you also, you want my Amulet, and I am trusting you.” + +“There’s something in that,” said Robert. + +“We have the two halves of the Amulet,” said the Priest, “but not yet +the pin that joined them. Our only chance of getting that is to remain +together. Once part these two halves and they may never be found in the +same time and place. Be wise. Our interests are the same.” + +Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him the +dye-master. His hair and beard were curled like the men’s in Babylon, +and he was dressed like the skipper, but with added grandeur of gold +and embroidery. He had necklaces of beads and silver, and a glass +amulet with a man’s face, very like his own, set between two bull’s +heads, as well as gold and silver bracelets and armlets. He looked +keenly at the children. Then he said— + +“My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He’s at his garden +house—unless he’s hunting wild boar in the marshes. He gets frightfully +bored on shore.” + +“Ah,” said the skipper, “he’s a true-born Phoenician. ‘Tyre, Tyre for +ever! Oh, Tyre rules the waves!’ as the old song says. I’ll go at once, +and show him my young barbarians.” + +“I should,” said the dye-master. “They are very rum, aren’t they? What +frightful clothes, and what a lot of them! Observe the covering of +their feet. Hideous indeed.” + +Robert could not help thinking how easy, and at the same time pleasant, +it would be to catch hold of the dye-master’s feet and tip him backward +into the great sunken vat just near him. But if he had, flight would +have had to be the next move, so he restrained his impulse. + +There was something about this Tyrian adventure that was different from +all the others. It was, somehow, calmer. And there was the undoubted +fact that the charm was there on the neck of the Egyptian. + +So they enjoyed everything to the full, the row from the Island City to +the shore, the ride on the donkeys that the skipper hired at the gate +of the mainland city, and the pleasant country—palms and figs and +cedars all about. It was like a garden—clematis, honeysuckle, and +jasmine clung about the olive and mulberry trees, and there were tulips +and gladiolus, and clumps of mandrake, which has bell-flowers that look +as though they were cut out of dark blue jewels. In the distance were +the mountains of Lebanon. + +The house they came to at last was rather like a bungalow—long and low, +with pillars all along the front. Cedars and sycamores grew near it and +sheltered it pleasantly. + +Everyone dismounted, and the donkeys were led away. + +“Why is this like Rosherville?” whispered Robert, and instantly +supplied the answer. + +“Because it’s the place to spend a happy day.” + +“It’s jolly decent of the skipper to have brought us to such a ripping +place,” said Cyril. + +“Do you know,” said Anthea, “this feels more real than anything else +we’ve seen? It’s like a holiday in the country at home.” + +The children were left alone in a large hall. The floor was mosaic, +done with wonderful pictures of ships and sea-beasts and fishes. +Through an open doorway they could see a pleasant courtyard with +flowers. + +“I should like to spend a week here,” said Jane, “and donkey ride every +day.” + +Everyone was feeling very jolly. Even the Egyptian looked pleasanter +than usual. And then, quite suddenly, the skipper came back with a +joyous smile. With him came the master of the house. He looked steadily +at the children and nodded twice. + +“Yes,” he said, “my steward will pay you the price. But I shall not pay +at that high rate for the Egyptian dog.” + +The two passed on. + +“This,” said the Egyptian, “is a pretty kettle of fish.” + +“What is?” asked all the children at once. + +“Our present position,” said Rekh-marā. “Our seafaring friend,” he +added, “has sold us all for slaves!” + +A hasty council succeeded the shock of this announcement. The Priest +was allowed to take part in it. His advice was “stay”, because they +were in no danger, and the Amulet in its completeness must be somewhere +near, or, of course, they could not have come to that place at all. And +after some discussion they agreed to this. + +The children were treated more as guests than as slaves, but the +Egyptian was sent to the kitchen and made to work. + +Pheles, the master of the house, went off that very evening, by the +King’s orders, to start on another voyage. And when he was gone his +wife found the children amusing company, and kept them talking and +singing and dancing till quite late. “To distract my mind from my +sorrows,” she said. + +“I do like being a slave,” remarked Jane cheerfully, as they curled up +on the big, soft cushions that were to be their beds. + +It was black night when they were awakened, each by a hand passed +softly over its face, and a low voice that whispered— + +“Be quiet, or all is lost.” + +So they were quiet. + +“It’s me, Rekh-marā, the Priest of Amen,” said the whisperer. “The man +who brought us has gone to sea again, and he has taken my Amulet from +me by force, and I know no magic to get it back. Is there magic for +that in the Amulet you bear?” + +Everyone was instantly awake by now. + +“We can go after him,” said Cyril, leaping up; “but he might take +_ours_ as well; or he might be angry with us for following him.” + +“I’ll see to _that_,” said the Egyptian in the dark. “Hide your Amulet +well.” + +There in the deep blackness of that room in the Tyrian country house +the Amulet was once more held up and the word spoken. + +All passed through on to a ship that tossed and tumbled on a wind-blown +sea. They crouched together there till morning, and Jane and Cyril were +not at all well. When the dawn showed, dove-coloured, across the steely +waves, they stood up as well as they could for the tumbling of the +ship. Pheles, that hardy sailor and adventurer, turned quite pale when +he turned round suddenly and saw them. + +“Well!” he said, “well, I never did!” + +“Master,” said the Egyptian, bowing low, and that was even more +difficult than standing up, “we are here by the magic of the sacred +Amulet that hangs round your neck.” + +“I never did!” repeated Pheles. “Well, well!” + +“What port is the ship bound for?” asked Robert, with a nautical air. + +But Pheles said, “Are you a navigator?” Robert had to own that he was +not. + +“Then,” said Pheles, “I don’t mind telling you that we’re bound for the +Tin Isles. Tyre alone knows where the Tin Isles are. It is a splendid +secret we keep from all the world. It is as great a thing to us as your +magic to you.” + +He spoke in quite a new voice, and seemed to respect both the children +and the Amulet a good deal more than he had done before. + +“The King sent you, didn’t he?” said Jane. + +“Yes,” answered Pheles, “he bade me set sail with half a score brave +gentlemen and this crew. You shall go with us, and see many wonders.” +He bowed and left them. + +“What are we going to do now?” said Robert, when Pheles had caused them +to be left along with a breakfast of dried fruits and a sort of hard +biscuit. + +“Wait till he lands in the Tin Isles,” said Rekh-marā, “then we can get +the barbarians to help us. We will attack him by night and tear the +sacred Amulet from his accursed heathen neck,” he added, grinding his +teeth. + +“When shall we get to the Tin Isles?” asked Jane. + +“Oh—six months, perhaps, or a year,” said the Egyptian cheerfully. + +“A _year_ of this?” cried Jane, and Cyril, who was still feeling far +too unwell to care about breakfast, hugged himself miserably and +shuddered. + +It was Robert who said— + +“Look here, we can shorten that year. Jane, out with the Amulet! Wish +that we were where the Amulet will be when the ship is twenty miles +from the Tin Island. That’ll give us time to mature our plans.” + +It was done—the work of a moment—and there they were on the same ship, +between grey northern sky and grey northern sea. The sun was setting in +a pale yellow line. It was the same ship, but it was changed, and so +were the crew. Weather-worn and dirty were the sailors, and their +clothes torn and ragged. And the children saw that, of course, though +they had skipped the nine months, the ship had had to live through +them. Pheles looked thinner, and his face was rugged and anxious. + +“Ha!” he cried, “the charm has brought you back! I have prayed to it +daily these nine months—and now you are here? Have you no magic that +can help?” + +“What is your need?” asked the Egyptian quietly. + +“I need a great wave that shall whelm away the foreign ship that +follows us. A month ago it lay in wait for us, by the pillars of the +gods, and it follows, follows, to find out the secret of Tyre—the place +of the Tin Islands. If I could steer by night I could escape them yet, +but tonight there will be no stars.” + +“My magic will not serve you here,” said the Egyptian. + +But Robert said, “My magic will not bring up great waves, but I can +show you how to steer without stars.” + +He took out the shilling compass, still, fortunately, in working order, +that he had bought off another boy at school for fivepence, a piece of +indiarubber, a strip of whalebone, and half a stick of red sealing-wax. + +And he showed Pheles how it worked. And Pheles wondered at the +compass’s magic truth. + +“I will give it to you,” Robert said, “in return for that charm about +your neck.” + +Pheles made no answer. He first laughed, snatched the compass from +Robert’s hand, and turned away still laughing. + +“Be comforted,” the Priest whispered, “our time will come.” + +The dusk deepened, and Pheles, crouched beside a dim lantern, steered +by the shilling compass from the Crystal Palace. + +No one ever knew how the other ship sailed, but suddenly, in the deep +night, the look-out man at the stern cried out in a terrible voice— + +“She is close upon us!” + +“And we,” said Pheles, “are close to the harbour.” He was silent a +moment, then suddenly he altered the ship’s course, and then he stood +up and spoke. + +“Good friends and gentlemen,” he said, “who are bound with me in this +brave venture by our King’s command, the false, foreign ship is close +on our heels. If we land, they land, and only the gods know whether +they might not beat us in fight, and themselves survive to carry back +the tale of Tyre’s secret island to enrich their own miserable land. +Shall this be?” + +“Never!” cried the half-dozen men near him. The slaves were rowing hard +below and could not hear his words. + +The Egyptian leaped upon him; suddenly, fiercely, as a wild beast +leaps. “Give me back my Amulet,” he cried, and caught at the charm. The +chain that held it snapped, and it lay in the Priest’s hand. + +Pheles laughed, standing balanced to the leap of the ship that answered +the oarstroke. + +“This is no time for charms and mummeries,” he said. “We’ve lived like +men, and we’ll die like gentlemen for the honour and glory of Tyre, our +splendid city. ‘Tyre, Tyre for ever! It’s Tyre that rules the waves.’ I +steer her straight for the Dragon rocks, and we go down for our city, +as brave men should. The creeping cowards who follow shall go down as +slaves—and slaves they shall be to us—when we live again. Tyre, Tyre +for ever!” + +A great shout went up, and the slaves below joined in it. + +“Quick, the Amulet,” cried Anthea, and held it up. Rekh-marā held up +the one he had snatched from Pheles. The word was spoken, and the two +great arches grew on the plunging ship in the shrieking wind under the +dark sky. From each Amulet a great and beautiful green light streamed +and shone far out over the waves. It illuminated, too, the black faces +and jagged teeth of the great rocks that lay not two ships’ lengths +from the boat’s peaked nose. + +“Tyre, Tyre for ever! It’s Tyre that rules the waves!” the voices of +the doomed rose in a triumphant shout. The children scrambled through +the arch, and stood trembling and blinking in the Fitzroy Street +parlour, and in their ears still sounded the whistle of the wind, and +the rattle of the oars, the crash of the ships bow on the rocks, and +the last shout of the brave gentlemen-adventurers who went to their +deaths singing, for the sake of the city they loved. + +“And so we’ve lost the other half of the Amulet again,” said Anthea, +when they had told the Psammead all about it. + +“Nonsense, pooh!” said the Psammead. “That wasn’t the other half. It +was the same half that you’ve got—the one that wasn’t crushed and +lost.” + +“But how could it be the same?” said Anthea gently. + +“Well, not exactly, of course. The one you’ve got is a good many years +older, but at any rate it’s not the other one. What did you say when +you wished?” + +“I forget,” said Jane. + +“I don’t,” said the Psammead. “You said, ‘Take us where _you_ are’—and +it did, so you see it was the same half.” + +“I see,” said Anthea. + +“But you mark my words,” the Psammead went on, “you’ll have trouble +with that Priest yet.” + +“Why, he was quite friendly,” said Anthea. + +“All the same you’d better beware of the Reverend Rekh-marā.” + +“Oh, I’m sick of the Amulet,” said Cyril, “we shall never get it.” + +“Oh yes we shall,” said Robert. “Don’t you remember December 3rd?” + +“Jinks!” said Cyril, “I’d forgotten that.” + +“I don’t believe it,” said Jane, “and I don’t feel at all well.” + +“If I were you,” said the Psammead, “I should not go out into the Past +again till that date. You’ll find it safer not to go where you’re +likely to meet that Egyptian any more just at present.” + +“Of course we’ll do as you say,” said Anthea soothingly, “though +there’s something about his face that I really do like.” + +“Still, you don’t want to run after him, I suppose,” snapped the +Psammead. “You wait till the 3rd, and then see what happens.” + +Cyril and Jane were feeling far from well, Anthea was always obliging, +so Robert was overruled. And they promised. And none of them, not even +the Psammead, at all foresaw, as you no doubt do quite plainly, exactly +what it was that _would_ happen on that memorable date. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +THE HEART’S DESIRE + + +If I only had time I could tell you lots of things. For instance, how, +in spite of the advice of the Psammead, the four children did, one very +wet day, go through their Amulet Arch into the golden desert, and there +find the great Temple of Baalbec and meet with the Phœnix whom they +never thought to see again. And how the Phœnix did not remember them at +all until it went into a sort of prophetic trance—if that can be called +remembering. But, alas! I _haven’t_ time, so I must leave all that out +though it was a wonderfully thrilling adventure. I must leave out, too, +all about the visit of the children to the Hippodrome with the Psammead +in its travelling bag, and about how the wishes of the people round +about them were granted so suddenly and surprisingly that at last the +Psammead had to be taken hurriedly home by Anthea, who consequently +missed half the performance. Then there was the time when, Nurse having +gone to tea with a friend out Ivalunk way, they were playing “devil in +the dark”—and in the midst of that most creepy pastime the postman’s +knock frightened Jane nearly out of her life. She took in the letters, +however, and put them in the back of the hat-stand drawer, so that they +should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of them again +for weeks and weeks. + +One really good thing happened when they took the Psammead to a +magic-lantern show and lecture at the boys’ school at Camden Town. The +lecture was all about our soldiers in South Africa. And the lecturer +ended up by saying, “And I hope every boy in this room has in his heart +the seeds of courage and heroism and self-sacrifice, and I wish that +every one of you may grow up to be noble and brave and unselfish, +worthy citizens of this great Empire for whom our soldiers have freely +given their lives.” + +And, of course, this came true—which was a distinct score for Camden +Town. + +As Anthea said, it was unlucky that the lecturer said boys, because now +she and Jane would have to be noble and unselfish, if at all, without +any outside help. But Jane said, “I daresay we are already because of +our beautiful natures. It’s only boys that have to be made brave by +magic”—which nearly led to a first-class row. + +And I daresay you would like to know all about the affair of the +fishing rod, and the fish-hooks, and the cook next door—which was +amusing from some points of view, though not perhaps the cook’s—but +there really is no time even for that. + +The only thing that there’s time to tell about is the Adventure of +Maskelyne and Cooke’s, and the Unexpected Apparition—which is also the +beginning of the end. + +It was Nurse who broke into the gloomy music of the autumn rain on the +window panes by suggesting a visit to the Egyptian Hall, England’s Home +of Mystery. Though they had good, but private reasons to know that +their own particular personal mystery was of a very different brand, +the four all brightened at the idea. All children, as well as a good +many grown-ups, love conjuring. + +“It’s in Piccadilly,” said old Nurse, carefully counting out the proper +number of shillings into Cyril’s hand, “not so very far down on the +left from the Circus. There’s big pillars outside, something like +Carter’s seed place in Holborn, as used to be Day and Martin’s blacking +when I was a gell. And something like Euston Station, only not so big.” + +“Yes, I know,” said everybody. + +So they started. + +But though they walked along the left-hand side of Piccadilly they saw +no pillared building that was at all like Carter’s seed warehouse or +Euston Station or England’s Home of Mystery as they remembered it. + +At last they stopped a hurried lady, and asked her the way to Maskelyne +and Cooke’s. + +“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she said, pushing past them. “I always shop +at the Stores.” Which just shows, as Jane said, how ignorant grown-up +people are. + +It was a policeman who at last explained to them that England’s +Mysteries are now appropriately enough enacted at St George’s Hall. So +they tramped to Langham Place, and missed the first two items in the +programme. But they were in time for the most wonderful magic +appearances and disappearances, which they could hardly believe—even +with all their knowledge of a larger magic—was not really magic after +all. + +“If only the Babylonians could have seen _this_ conjuring,” whispered +Cyril. “It takes the shine out of their old conjurer, doesn’t it?” + +“Hush!” said Anthea and several other members of the audience. + +Now there was a vacant seat next to Robert. And it was when all eyes +were fixed on the stage where Mr Devant was pouring out glasses of all +sorts of different things to drink, out of one kettle with one spout, +and the audience were delightedly tasting them, that Robert felt +someone in that vacant seat. He did not feel someone sit down in it. It +was just that one moment there was no one sitting there, and the next +moment, suddenly, there was someone. + +Robert turned. The someone who had suddenly filled that empty place was +Rekh-marā, the Priest of Amen! + +Though the eyes of the audience were fixed on Mr David Devant, Mr David +Devant’s eyes were fixed on the audience. And it happened that his eyes +were more particularly fixed on that empty chair. So that he saw quite +plainly the sudden appearance, from nowhere, of the Egyptian Priest. + +“A jolly good trick,” he said to himself, “and worked under my own +eyes, in my own hall. I’ll find out how that’s done.” He had never seen +a trick that he could not do himself if he tried. + +By this time a good many eyes in the audience had turned on the +clean-shaven, curiously-dressed figure of the Egyptian Priest. + +“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr Devant, rising to the occasion, “this +is a trick I have never before performed. The empty seat, third from +the end, second row, gallery—you will now find occupied by an Ancient +Egyptian, warranted genuine.” + +He little knew how true his words were. + +And now all eyes were turned on the Priest and the children, and the +whole audience, after a moment’s breathless surprise, shouted applause. +Only the lady on the other side of Rekh-marā drew back a little. She +_knew_ no one had passed her, and, as she said later, over tea and cold +tongue, “it was that sudden it made her flesh creep.” + +Rekh-marā seemed very much annoyed at the notice he was exciting. + +“Come out of this crowd,” he whispered to Robert. “I must talk with you +apart.” + +“Oh, no,” Jane whispered. “I did so want to see the Mascot Moth, and +the Ventriloquist.” + +“How did you get here?” was Robert’s return whisper. + +“How did you get to Egypt and to Tyre?” retorted Rekh-marā. “Come, let +us leave this crowd.” + +“There’s no help for it, I suppose,” Robert shrugged angrily. But they +all got up. + +“Confederates!” said a man in the row behind. “Now they go round to the +back and take part in the next scene.” + +“I wish we did,” said Robert. + +“Confederate yourself!” said Cyril. And so they got away, the audience +applauding to the last. + +In the vestibule of St George’s Hall they disguised Rekh-marā as well +as they could, but even with Robert’s hat and Cyril’s Inverness cape he +was too striking a figure for foot-exercise in the London streets. It +had to be a cab, and it took the last, least money of all of them. They +stopped the cab a few doors from home, and then the girls went in and +engaged old Nurse’s attention by an account of the conjuring and a +fervent entreaty for dripping-toast with their tea, leaving the front +door open so that while Nurse was talking to them the boys could creep +quietly in with Rekh-marā and smuggle him, unseen, up the stairs into +their bedroom. + +When the girls came up they found the Egyptian Priest sitting on the +side of Cyril’s bed, his hands on his knees, looking like a statue of a +king. + +“Come on,” said Cyril impatiently. “He won’t begin till we’re all here. +And shut the door, can’t you?” + +When the door was shut the Egyptian said— + +“My interests and yours are one.” + +“Very interesting,” said Cyril, “and it’ll be a jolly sight more +interesting if you keep following us about in a decent country with no +more clothes on than _that!_” + +“Peace,” said the Priest. “What is this country? and what is this +_time?_” + +“The country’s England,” said Anthea, “and the time’s about 6,000 years +later than _your_ time.” + +“The Amulet, then,” said the Priest, deeply thoughtful, “gives the +power to move to and fro in time as well as in space?” + +“That’s about it,” said Cyril gruffly. “Look here, it’ll be tea-time +directly. What are we to do with you?” + +“You have one-half of the Amulet, I the other,” said Rekh-marā. “All +that is now needed is the pin to join them.” + +“Don’t you think it,” said Robert. “The half you’ve got is the same +half as the one we’ve got.” + +“But the same thing cannot be in the same place and the same time, and +yet be not one, but twain,” said the Priest. “See, here is my half.” He +laid it on the Marcella counterpane. “Where is yours?” + +Jane watching the eyes of the others, unfastened the string of the +Amulet and laid it on the bed, but too far off for the Priest to seize +it, even if he had been so dishonourable. Cyril and Robert stood beside +him, ready to spring on him if one of his hands had moved but ever so +little towards the magic treasure that was theirs. But his hands did +not move, only his eyes opened very wide, and so did everyone else’s +for the Amulet the Priest had now quivered and shook; and then, as +steel is drawn to the magnet, it was drawn across the white +counterpane, nearer and nearer to the Amulet, warm from the neck of +Jane. And then, as one drop of water mingles with another on a +rain-wrinkled window-pane, as one bead of quick-silver is drawn into +another bead, Rekh-marā’s Amulet slipped into the other one, and, +behold! there was no more but the one Amulet! + +“Black magic!” cried Rekh-marā, and sprang forward to snatch the Amulet +that had swallowed his. But Anthea caught it up, and at the same moment +the Priest was jerked back by a rope thrown over his head. It drew, +tightened with the pull of his forward leap, and bound his elbows to +his sides. Before he had time to use his strength to free himself, +Robert had knotted the cord behind him and tied it to the bedpost. Then +the four children, overcoming the priest’s wrigglings and kickings, +tied his legs with more rope. + +“I thought,” said Robert, breathing hard, and drawing the last knot +tight, “he’d have a try for _Ours_, so I got the ropes out of the +box-room, so as to be ready.” + +The girls, with rather white faces, applauded his foresight. + +“Loosen these bonds!” cried Rekh-marā in fury, “before I blast you with +the seven secret curses of Amen-Rā!” + +“We shouldn’t be likely to loose them _after_,” Robert retorted. + +“Oh, don’t quarrel!” said Anthea desperately. “Look here, he _has_ just +as much right to the thing as we have. This,” she took up the Amulet +that had swallowed the other one, “this has got his in it as well as +being ours. Let’s go shares.” + +“Let me go!” cried the Priest, writhing. + +“Now, look here,” said Robert, “if you make a row we can just open that +window and call the police—the guards, you know—and tell them you’ve +been trying to rob us. _Now_ will you shut up and listen to reason?” + +“I suppose so,” said Rekh-marā sulkily. + +But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered counsel had been +held in the far corner by the washhand-stand and the towel-horse, a +counsel rather long and very earnest. + +At last Anthea detached herself from the group, and went back to the +Priest. + +“Look here,” she said in her kind little voice, “we want to be friends. +We want to help you. Let’s make a treaty. Let’s join together to _get_ +the Amulet—the whole one, I mean. And then it shall belong to you as +much as to us, and we shall all get our hearts’ desire.” + +“Fair words,” said the Priest, “grow no onions.” + +“_We_ say, ‘Butter no parsnips’,” Jane put in. “But don’t you see we +_want_ to be fair? Only we want to bind you in the chains of honour and +upright dealing.” + +“Will you deal fairly by us?” said Robert. + +“I will,” said the Priest. “By the sacred, secret name that is written +under the Altar of Amen-Rā, I will deal fairly by you. Will you, too, +take the oath of honourable partnership?” + +“No,” said Anthea, on the instant, and added rather rashly, “We don’t +swear in England, except in police courts, where the guards are, you +know, and you don’t want to go there. But when we _say_ we’ll do a +thing—it’s the same as an oath to us—we do it. You trust us, and we’ll +trust you.” She began to unbind his legs, and the boys hastened to +untie his arms. + +When he was free he stood up, stretched his arms, and laughed. + +“Now,” he said, “I am stronger than you and my oath is void. I have +sworn by nothing, and my oath is nothing likewise. For there _is_ no +secret, sacred name under the altar of Amen-Rā.” + +“Oh, yes there is!” said a voice from under the bed. Everyone +started—Rekh-marā most of all. + +Cyril stooped and pulled out the bath of sand where the Psammead slept. + +“You don’t know everything, though you _are_ a Divine Father of the +Temple of Amen,” said the Psammead shaking itself till the sand fell +tinkling on the bath edge. “There _is_ a secret, sacred name beneath +the altar of Amen-Rā. Shall I call on that name?” + +“No, no!” cried the Priest in terror. “No,” said Jane, too. “Don’t +let’s have any calling names.” + +“Besides,” said Rekh-marā, who had turned very white indeed under his +natural brownness, “I was only going to say that though there isn’t any +name under—” + +“There _is_,” said the Psammead threateningly. + +“Well, even if there _wasn’t_, I will be bound by the wordless oath of +your strangely upright land, and having said that I will be your +friend—I will be it.” + +“Then that’s all right,” said the Psammead; “and there’s the tea-bell. +What are you going to do with your distinguished partner? He can’t go +down to tea like that, you know.” + +“You see we can’t do anything till the 3rd of December,” said Anthea, +“that’s when we are to find the whole charm. What can we do with +Rekh-marā till then?” + +“Box-room,” said Cyril briefly, “and smuggle up his meals. It will be +rather fun.” + +“Like a fleeing Cavalier concealed from exasperated Roundheads,” said +Robert. “Yes.” + +So Rekh-marā was taken up to the box-room and made as comfortable as +possible in a snug nook between an old nursery fender and the wreck of +a big four-poster. They gave him a big rag-bag to sit on, and an old, +moth-eaten fur coat off the nail on the door to keep him warm. And when +they had had their own tea they took him some. He did not like the tea +at all, but he liked the bread and butter, and cake that went with it. +They took it in turns to sit with him during the evening, and left him +fairly happy and quite settled for the night. + +But when they went up in the morning with a kipper, a quarter of which +each of them had gone without at breakfast, Rekh-marā was gone! There +was the cosy corner with the rag-bag, and the moth-eaten fur coat—but +the cosy corner was empty. + +“Good riddance!” was naturally the first delightful thought in each +mind. The second was less pleasing, because everyone at once remembered +that since his Amulet had been swallowed up by theirs—which hung once +more round the neck of Jane—he could have no possible means of +returning to his Egyptian past. Therefore he must be still in England, +and probably somewhere quite near them, plotting mischief. + +The attic was searched, to prevent mistakes, but quite vainly. + +“The best thing we can do,” said Cyril, “is to go through the half +Amulet straight away, get the whole Amulet, and come back.” + +“I don’t know,” Anthea hesitated. “Would that be quite fair? Perhaps he +isn’t really a base deceiver. Perhaps something’s happened to him.” + +“Happened?” said Cyril, “not it! Besides, what _could_ happen?” + +“I don’t know,” said Anthea. “Perhaps burglars came in the night, and +accidentally killed him, and took away the—all that was mortal of him, +you know—to avoid discovery.” + +“Or perhaps,” said Cyril, “they hid the—all that was mortal, in one of +those big trunks in the box-room. _Shall we go back and look?_” he +added grimly. + +“No, no!” Jane shuddered. “Let’s go and tell the Psammead and see what +it says.” + +“No,” said Anthea, “let’s ask the learned gentleman. If anything _has_ +happened to Rekh-marā a gentleman’s advice would be more useful than a +Psammead’s. And the learned gentleman’ll only think it’s a dream, like +he always does.” + +They tapped at the door, and on the “Come in” entered. The learned +gentleman was sitting in front of his untasted breakfast. Opposite him, +in the easy chair, sat Rekh-marā! + +“Hush!” said the learned gentleman very earnestly, “please, hush! or +the dream will go. I am learning... Oh, what have I not learned in the +last hour!” + +“In the grey dawn,” said the Priest, “I left my hiding-place, and +finding myself among these treasures from my own country, I remained. I +feel more at home here somehow.” + +“Of course I know it’s a dream,” said the learned gentleman feverishly, +“but, oh, ye gods! what a dream! By Jove!...” + +“Call not upon the gods,” said the Priest, “lest ye raise greater ones +than ye can control. Already,” he explained to the children, “he and I +are as brothers, and his welfare is dear to me as my own.” + +“He has told me,” the learned gentleman began, but Robert interrupted. +This was no moment for manners. + +“Have you told him,” he asked the Priest, “all about the Amulet?” + +“No,” said Rekh-marā. + +“Then tell him now. He is very learned. Perhaps he can tell us what to +do.” + +Rekh-marā hesitated, then told—and, oddly enough, none of the children +ever could remember afterwards what it was that he did tell. Perhaps he +used some magic to prevent their remembering. + +When he had done the learned gentleman was silent, leaning his elbow on +the table and his head on his hand. + +“Dear Jimmy,” said Anthea gently, “don’t worry about it. We are sure to +find it today, somehow.” + +“Yes,” said Rekh-marā, “and perhaps, with it, Death.” + +“It’s to bring us our hearts’ desire,” said Robert. + +“Who knows,” said the Priest, “what things undreamed-of and infinitely +desirable lie beyond the dark gates?” + +“Oh, _don’t_,” said Jane, almost whimpering. + +The learned gentleman raised his head suddenly. + +“Why not,” he suggested, “go back into the Past? At a moment when the +Amulet is unwatched. Wish to be with it, and that it shall be under +your hand.” + +It was the simplest thing in the world! And yet none of them had ever +thought of it. + +“Come,” cried Rekh-marā, leaping up. “Come _now!_” + +“May—may I come?” the learned gentleman timidly asked. “It’s only a +dream, you know.” + +“Come, and welcome, oh brother,” Rekh-marā was beginning, but Cyril and +Robert with one voice cried, “_No_.” + +“You weren’t with us in Atlantis,” Robert added, “or you’d know better +than to let him come.” + +“Dear Jimmy,” said Anthea, “please don’t ask to come. We’ll go and be +back again before you have time to know that we’re gone.” + +“And he, too?” + +“We must keep together,” said Rekh-marā, “since there is but one +perfect Amulet to which I and these children have equal claims.” + +Jane held up the Amulet—Rekh-marā went first—and they all passed +through the great arch into which the Amulet grew at the Name of Power. + +The learned gentleman saw through the arch a darkness lighted by smoky +gleams. He rubbed his eyes. And he only rubbed them for ten seconds. + +The children and the Priest were in a small, dark chamber. A square +doorway of massive stone let in gleams of shifting light, and the sound +of many voices chanting a slow, strange hymn. They stood listening. Now +and then the chant quickened and the light grew brighter, as though +fuel had been thrown on a fire. + +“Where are we?” whispered Anthea. + +“And when?” whispered Robert. + +“This is some shrine near the beginnings of belief,” said the Egyptian +shivering. “Take the Amulet and come away. It is cold here in the +morning of the world.” + +And then Jane felt that her hand was on a slab or table of stone, and, +under her hand, something that felt like the charm that had so long +hung round her neck, only it was thicker. Twice as thick. + +“It’s _here!_” she said, “I’ve got it!” And she hardly knew the sound +of her own voice. + +“Come away,” repeated Rekh-marā. + +“I wish we could see more of this Temple,” said Robert resistingly. + +“Come away,” the Priest urged, “there is death all about, and strong +magic. Listen.” + +The chanting voices seemed to have grown louder and fiercer, and light +stronger. + +“They are coming!” cried Rekh-marā. “Quick, quick, the Amulet!” + +Jane held it up. + +“What a long time you’ve been rubbing your eyes!” said Anthea; “don’t +you see we’ve got back?” The learned gentleman merely stared at her. + +“Miss Anthea—Miss Jane!” It was Nurse’s voice, very much higher and +squeaky and more exalted than usual. + +“Oh, bother!” said everyone. Cyril adding, “You just go on with the +dream for a sec, Mr Jimmy, we’ll be back directly. Nurse’ll come up if +we don’t. _She_ wouldn’t think Rekh-marā was a dream.” + +Then they went down. Nurse was in the hall, an orange envelope in one +hand, and a pink paper in the other. + +“Your Pa and Ma’s come home. ‘Reach London 11.15. Prepare rooms as +directed in letter’, and signed in their two names.” + +“Oh, hooray! hooray! hooray!” shouted the boys and Jane. But Anthea +could not shout, she was nearer crying. + +“Oh,” she said almost in a whisper, “then it _was_ true. And we _have_ +got our hearts’ desire.” + +“But I don’t understand about the letter,” Nurse was saying. “I haven’t +_had_ no letter.” + +“_Oh!_” said Jane in a queer voice, “I wonder whether it was one of +those... they came that night—you know, when we were playing ‘devil in +the dark’—and I put them in the hat-stand drawer, behind the +clothes-brushes and”—she pulled out the drawer as she spoke—“and here +they are!” + +There was a letter for Nurse and one for the children. The letters told +how Father had done being a war-correspondent and was coming home; and +how Mother and The Lamb were going to meet him in Italy and all come +home together; and how The Lamb and Mother were quite well; and how a +telegram would be sent to tell the day and the hour of their +home-coming. + +“Mercy me!” said old Nurse. “I declare if it’s not too bad of you, Miss +Jane. I shall have a nice to-do getting things straight for your Pa and +Ma.” + +“Oh, never mind, Nurse,” said Jane, hugging her; “isn’t it just too +lovely for anything!” + +“We’ll come and help you,” said Cyril. “There’s just something upstairs +we’ve got to settle up, and then we’ll all come and help you.” + +“Get along with you,” said old Nurse, but she laughed jollily. “Nice +help _you’d_ be. I know you. And it’s ten o’clock now.” + +There was, in fact, something upstairs that they had to settle. Quite a +considerable something, too. And it took much longer than they +expected. + +A hasty rush into the boys’ room secured the Psammead, very sandy and +very cross. + +“It doesn’t matter how cross and sandy it is though,” said Anthea, “it +ought to be there at the final council.” + +“It’ll give the learned gentleman fits, I expect,” said Robert, “when +he sees it.” + +But it didn’t. + +“The dream is growing more and more wonderful,” he exclaimed, when the +Psammead had been explained to him by Rekh-marā. “I have dreamed this +beast before.” + +“Now,” said Robert, “Jane has got the half Amulet and I’ve got the +whole. Show up, Jane.” + +Jane untied the string and laid her half Amulet on the table, littered +with dusty papers, and the clay cylinders marked all over with little +marks like the little prints of birds’ little feet. + +Robert laid down the whole Amulet, and Anthea gently restrained the +eager hand of the learned gentleman as it reached out yearningly +towards the “perfect specimen”. + +And then, just as before on the Marcella quilt, so now on the dusty +litter of papers and curiosities, the half Amulet quivered and shook, +and then, as steel is drawn to a magnet, it was drawn across the dusty +manuscripts, nearer and nearer to the perfect Amulet, warm from the +pocket of Robert. And then, as one drop of water mingles with another +when the panes of the window are wrinkled with rain, as one bead of +mercury is drawn into another bead, the half Amulet, that was the +children’s and was also Rekh-marā’s,—slipped into the whole Amulet, +and, behold! there was only one—the perfect and ultimate Charm. + +“And _that’s_ all right,” said the Psammead, breaking a breathless +silence. + +“Yes,” said Anthea, “and we’ve got our hearts’ desire. Father and +Mother and The Lamb are coming home today.” + +“But what about me?” said Rekh-marā. + +“What _is_ your heart’s desire?” Anthea asked. + +“Great and deep learning,” said the Priest, without a moment’s +hesitation. “A learning greater and deeper than that of any man of my +land and my time. But learning too great is useless. If I go back to my +own land and my own age, who will believe my tales of what I have seen +in the future? Let me stay here, be the great knower of all that has +been, in that our time, so living to me, so old to you, about which +your learned men speculate unceasingly, and often, _he_ tells me, +vainly.” + +“If I were you,” said the Psammead, “I should ask the Amulet about +that. It’s a dangerous thing, trying to live in a time that’s not your +own. You can’t breathe an air that’s thousands of centuries ahead of +your lungs without feeling the effects of it, sooner or later. Prepare +the mystic circle and consult the Amulet.” + +“Oh, _what_ a dream!” cried the learned gentleman. “Dear children, if +you love me—and I think you do, in dreams and out of them—prepare the +mystic circle and consult the Amulet!” + +They did. As once before, when the sun had shone in August splendour, +they crouched in a circle on the floor. Now the air outside was thick +and yellow with the fog that by some strange decree always attends the +Cattle Show week. And in the street costers were shouting. “Ur Hekau +Setcheh,” Jane said the Name of Power. And instantly the light went +out, and all the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence and a +darkness, both deeper than any darkness or silence that you have ever +even dreamed of imagining. It was like being deaf or blind, only darker +and quieter even than that. + +Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a voice. +The light was too faint to see anything by, and the voice was too small +for you to hear what it said. But the light and the voice grew. And the +light was the light that no man may look on and live, and the voice was +the sweetest and most terrible voice in the world. The children cast +down their eyes. And so did everyone. + +“I speak,” said the voice. “What is it that you would hear?” + +There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak. + +“What are we to do about Rekh-marā?” said Robert suddenly and abruptly. +“Shall he go back through the Amulet to his own time, or—” + +“No one can pass through the Amulet now,” said the beautiful, terrible +voice, “to any land or any time. Only when it was imperfect could such +things be. But men may pass through the perfect charm to the perfect +union, which is not of time or space.” + +“Would you be so very kind,” said Anthea tremulously, “as to speak so +that we can understand you? The Psammead said something about Rekh-marā +not being able to live here, and if he can’t get back—” She stopped, +her heart was beating desperately in her throat, as it seemed. + +“Nobody can continue to live in a land and in a time not appointed,” +said the voice of glorious sweetness. “But a soul may live, if in that +other time and land there be found a soul so akin to it as to offer it +refuge, in the body of that land and time, that thus they two may be +one soul in one body.” + +The children exchanged discouraged glances. But the eyes of Rekh-marā +and the learned gentleman met, and were kind to each other, and +promised each other many things, secret and sacred and very beautiful. + +Anthea saw the look. + +“Oh, but,” she said, without at all meaning to say it, “dear Jimmy’s +soul isn’t at all like Rekh-marā’s. I’m certain it isn’t. I don’t want +to be rude, but it _isn’t_, you know. Dear Jimmy’s soul is as good as +gold, and—” + +“Nothing that is not good can pass beneath the double arch of my +perfect Amulet,” said the voice. “If both are willing, say the word of +Power, and let the two souls become one for ever and ever more.” + +“Shall I?” asked Jane. + +“Yes.” + +“Yes.” + +The voices were those of the Egyptian Priest and the learned gentleman, +and the voices were eager, alive, thrilled with hope and the desire of +great things. + +So Jane took the Amulet from Robert and held it up between the two men, +and said, for the last time, the word of Power. + +“Ur Hekau Setcheh.” + +The perfect Amulet grew into a double arch; the two arches leaned to +each other Λ making a great A. + +“A stands for Amen,” whispered Jane; “what he was a priest of.” + +“Hush!” breathed Anthea. + +The great double arch glowed in and through the green light that had +been there since the Name of Power had first been spoken—it glowed with +a light more bright yet more soft than the other light—a glory and +splendour and sweetness unspeakable. + +“Come!” cried Rekh-marā, holding out his hands. + +“Come!” cried the learned gentleman, and he also held out his hands. + +Each moved forward under the glowing, glorious arch of the perfect +Amulet. + +Then Rekh-marā quavered and shook, and as steel is drawn to a magnet he +was drawn, under the arch of magic, nearer and nearer to the learned +gentleman. And, as one drop of water mingles with another, when the +window-glass is rain-wrinkled, as one quick-silver bead is drawn to +another quick-silver bead, Rekh-marā, Divine Father of the Temple of +Amen-Rā, was drawn into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one +with Jimmy, the good, the beloved, the learned gentleman. + +And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone. The fog +has passed away like a dream. + +The Amulet was there—little and complete in Jane’s hand, and there were +the other children and the Psammead, and the learned gentleman. But +Rekh-marā—or the body of Rekh-marā—was not there any more. As for his +soul... + +“Oh, the horrid thing!” cried Robert, and put his foot on a centipede +as long as your finger, that crawled and wriggled and squirmed at the +learned gentleman’s feet. + +“_That_,” said the Psammead, “was the evil in the soul of Rekh-marā.” + +There was a deep silence. + +“Then Rekh-marā’s _him_ now?” said Jane at last. + +“All that was good in Rekh-marā,” said the Psammead. + +“_He_ ought to have his heart’s desire, too,” said Anthea, in a sort of +stubborn gentleness. + +“_His_ heart’s desire,” said the Psammead, “is the perfect Amulet you +hold in your hand. Yes—and has been ever since he first saw the broken +half of it.” + +“We’ve got ours,” said Anthea softly. + +“Yes,” said the Psammead—its voice was crosser than they had ever heard +it—“your parents are coming home. And what’s to become of _me?_ I shall +be found out, and made a show of, and degraded in every possible way. I +_know_ they’ll make me go into Parliament—hateful place—all mud and no +sand. That beautiful Baalbec temple in the desert! Plenty of good sand +there, and no politics! I wish I were there, safe in the Past—that I +do.” + +“I wish you were,” said the learned gentleman absently, yet polite as +ever. + +The Psammead swelled itself up, turned its long snail’s eyes in one +last lingering look at Anthea—a loving look, she always said, and +thought—and—vanished. + +“Well,” said Anthea, after a silence, “I suppose it’s happy. The only +thing it ever did really care for was _sand_.” + +“My dear children,” said the learned gentleman, “I must have fallen +asleep. I’ve had the most extraordinary dream.” + +“I hope it was a nice one,” said Cyril with courtesy. + +“Yes.... I feel a new man after it. Absolutely a new man.” + +There was a ring at the front-door bell. The opening of a door. Voices. + +“It’s _them!_” cried Robert, and a thrill ran through four hearts. + +“Here!” cried Anthea, snatching the Amulet from Jane and pressing it +into the hand of the learned gentleman. “Here—it’s _yours_—your very +own—a present from us, because you’re Rekh-marā as well as... I mean, +because you’re such a dear.” + +She hugged him briefly but fervently, and the four swept down the +stairs to the hall, where a cabman was bringing in boxes, and where, +heavily disguised in travelling cloaks and wraps, was their hearts’ +desire—three-fold—Mother, Father, and The Lamb. + +“Bless me!” said the learned gentleman, left alone, “bless me! What a +treasure! The dear children! It must be their affection that has given +me these luminous _aperçus_. I seem to see so many things now—things I +never saw before! The dear children! The dear, dear children!” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE AMULET *** + +***** This file should be named 837-0.txt or 837-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/8/3/837/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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Nesbit</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Story of the Amulet</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: E. Nesbit</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March, 1997 [eBook #837]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 7, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Jo Churcher and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE AMULET ***</div> + +<h1>The Story of the Amulet</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by E. Nesbit</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE PSAMMEAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. THE HALF AMULET</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. THE PAST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. THE WAY TO BABYLON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. “THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. THE QUEEN IN LONDON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. ATLANTIS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL AND JULIUS CAESAR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. BEFORE PHARAOH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. THE SHIPWRECK ON THE TIN ISLANDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. THE HEART’S DESIRE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<h4>TO<br /> +<br /> +Dr Wallis Budge<br /> +of the British Museum as a<br /> +small token of gratitude for his<br /> +unfailing kindness and help<br /> +in the making of it</h4> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /> +THE PSAMMEAD</h2> + +<p> +There were once four children who spent their summer holidays in a white house, +happily situated between a sandpit and a chalkpit. One day they had the good +fortune to find in the sandpit a strange creature. Its eyes were on long horns +like snail’s eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes. It +had ears like a bat’s ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a +spider’s and covered with thick soft fur—and it had hands and feet +like a monkey’s. It told the children—whose names were Cyril, +Robert, Anthea, and Jane—that it was a Psammead or sand-fairy. (Psammead +is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, old, old, and its birthday was almost at +the very beginning of everything. And it had been buried in the sand for +thousands of years. But it still kept its fairylikeness, and part of this +fairylikeness was its power to give people whatever they wished for. You know +fairies have always been able to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now +found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the +right things to wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly +indeed. In the end their unwise wishings landed them in what Robert called +“a very tight place indeed”, and the Psammead consented to help +them out of it in return for their promise never never to ask it to grant them +any more wishes, and never to tell anyone about it, because it did not want to +be bothered to give wishes to anyone ever any more. At the moment of parting +Jane said politely— +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we were going to see you again some day.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Psammead, touched by this friendly thought, granted the wish. The book +about all this is called <i>Five Children and It</i>, and it ends up in a most +tiresome way by saying— +</p> + +<p> +“The children <i>did</i> see the Psammead again, but it was not in the +sandpit; it was—but I must say no more—” +</p> + +<p> +The reason that nothing more could be said was that I had not then been able to +find out exactly when and where the children met the Psammead again. Of course +I knew they would meet it, because it was a beast of its word, and when it said +a thing would happen, that thing happened without fail. How different from the +people who tell us about what weather it is going to be on Thursday next, in +London, the South Coast, and Channel! +</p> + +<p> +The summer holidays during which the Psammead had been found and the wishes +given had been wonderful holidays in the country, and the children had the +highest hopes of just such another holiday for the next summer. The winter +holidays were beguiled by the wonderful happenings of <i>The Phœnix and the +Carpet</i>, and the loss of these two treasures would have left the children in +despair, but for the splendid hope of their next holiday in the country. The +world, they felt, and indeed had some reason to feel, was full of wonderful +things—and they were really the sort of people that wonderful things +happen to. So they looked forward to the summer holiday; but when it came +everything was different, and very, very horrid. Father had to go out to +Manchuria to telegraph news about the war to the tiresome paper he wrote +for—the <i>Daily Bellower</i>, or something like that, was its name. And +Mother, poor dear Mother, was away in Madeira, because she had been very ill. +And The Lamb—I mean the baby—was with her. And Aunt Emma, who was +Mother’s sister, had suddenly married Uncle Reginald, who was +Father’s brother, and they had gone to China, which is much too far off +for you to expect to be asked to spend the holidays in, however fond your aunt +and uncle may be of you. So the children were left in the care of old Nurse, +who lived in Fitzroy Street, near the British Museum, and though she was always +very kind to them, and indeed spoiled them far more than would be good for the +most grown-up of us, the four children felt perfectly wretched, and when the +cab had driven off with Father and all his boxes and guns and the sheepskin, +with blankets and the aluminium mess-kit inside it, the stoutest heart quailed, +and the girls broke down altogether, and sobbed in each other’s arms, +while the boys each looked out of one of the long gloomy windows of the +parlour, and tried to pretend that no boy would be such a muff as to cry. +</p> + +<p> +I hope you notice that they were not cowardly enough to cry till their Father +had gone; they knew he had quite enough to upset him without that. But when he +was gone everyone felt as if it had been trying not to cry all its life, and +that it must cry now, if it died for it. So they cried. +</p> + +<p> +Tea—with shrimps and watercress—cheered them a little. The +watercress was arranged in a hedge round a fat glass salt-cellar, a tasteful +device they had never seen before. But it was not a cheerful meal. +</p> + +<p> +After tea Anthea went up to the room that had been Father’s, and when she +saw how dreadfully he wasn’t there, and remembered how every minute was +taking him further and further from her, and nearer and nearer to the guns of +the Russians, she cried a little more. Then she thought of Mother, ill and +alone, and perhaps at that very moment wanting a little girl to put +eau-de-cologne on her head, and make her sudden cups of tea, and she cried more +than ever. And then she remembered what Mother had said, the night before she +went away, about Anthea being the eldest girl, and about trying to make the +others happy, and things like that. So she stopped crying, and thought instead. +And when she had thought as long as she could bear she washed her face and +combed her hair, and went down to the others, trying her best to look as though +crying were an exercise she had never even heard of. +</p> + +<p> +She found the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by the efforts +of Robert, who, to make the time pass, was pulling Jane’s hair—not +hard, but just enough to tease. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said Anthea. “Let’s have a palaver.” +This word dated from the awful day when Cyril had carelessly wished that there +were Red Indians in England—and there had been. The word brought back +memories of last summer holidays and everyone groaned; they thought of the +white house with the beautiful tangled garden—late roses, asters, +marigold, sweet mignonette, and feathery asparagus—of the wilderness +which someone had once meant to make into an orchard, but which was now, as +Father said, “five acres of thistles haunted by the ghosts of baby +cherry-trees”. They thought of the view across the valley, where the +lime-kilns looked like Aladdin’s palaces in the sunshine, and they +thought of their own sandpit, with its fringe of yellowy grasses and +pale-stringy-stalked wild flowers, and the little holes in the cliff that were +the little sand-martins’ little front doors. And they thought of the free +fresh air smelling of thyme and sweetbriar, and the scent of the wood-smoke +from the cottages in the lane—and they looked round old Nurse’s +stuffy parlour, and Jane said— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how different it all is!” +</p> + +<p> +It was. Old Nurse had been in the habit of letting lodgings, till Father gave +her the children to take care of. And her rooms were furnished “for +letting”. Now it is a very odd thing that no one ever seems to furnish a +room “for letting” in a bit the same way as one would furnish it +for living in. This room had heavy dark red stuff curtains—the colour +that blood would not make a stain on—with coarse lace curtains inside. +The carpet was yellow, and violet, with bits of grey and brown oilcloth in odd +places. The fireplace had shavings and tinsel in it. There was a very varnished +mahogany chiffonier, or sideboard, with a lock that wouldn’t act. There +were hard chairs—far too many of them—with crochet antimacassars +slipping off their seats, all of which sloped the wrong way. The table wore a +cloth of a cruel green colour with a yellow chain-stitch pattern round it. Over +the fireplace was a looking-glass that made you look much uglier than you +really were, however plain you might be to begin with. Then there was a +mantelboard with maroon plush and wool fringe that did not match the plush; a +dreary clock like a black marble tomb—it was silent as the grave too, for +it had long since forgotten how to tick. And there were painted glass vases +that never had any flowers in, and a painted tambourine that no one ever +played, and painted brackets with nothing on them. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And maple-framed engravings of the Queen,<br /> +The Houses of Parliament, the Plains of Heaven,<br /> +And of a blunt-nosed woodman’s flat return.” +</p> + +<p> +There were two books—last December’s <i>Bradshaw</i>, and an odd +volume of Plumridge’s <i>Commentary on Thessalonians</i>. There +were—but I cannot dwell longer on this painful picture. It was indeed, as +Jane said, very different. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have a palaver,” said Anthea again. +</p> + +<p> +“What about?” said Cyril, yawning. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing to have <i>anything</i> about,” said Robert +kicking the leg of the table miserably. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to play,” said Jane, and her tone was grumpy. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea tried very hard not to be cross. She succeeded. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” she said, “don’t think I want to be +preachy or a beast in any way, but I want to what Father calls define the +situation. Do you agree?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fire ahead,” said Cyril without enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then. We all know the reason we’re staying here is because +Nurse couldn’t leave her house on account of the poor learned gentleman +on the top-floor. And there was no one else Father could entrust to take care +of us—and you know it’s taken a lot of money, Mother’s going +to Madeira to be made well.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane sniffed miserably. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” said Anthea in a hurry, “but don’t +let’s think about how horrid it all is. I mean we can’t go to +things that cost a lot, but we must do <i>something</i>. And I know there are +heaps of things you can see in London without paying for them, and I thought +we’d go and see them. We are all quite old now, and we haven’t got +The Lamb—” +</p> + +<p> +Jane sniffed harder than before. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean no one can say ‘No’ because of him, dear pet. And I +thought we <i>must</i> get Nurse to see how quite old we are, and let us go out +by ourselves, or else we shall never have any sort of a time at all. And I vote +we see everything there is, and let’s begin by asking Nurse to give us +some bits of bread and we’ll go to St James’s Park. There are ducks +there, I know, we can feed them. Only we must make Nurse let us go by +ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurrah for liberty!” said Robert, “but she +won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes she will,” said Jane unexpectedly. “<i>I</i> thought +about that this morning, and I asked Father, and he said yes; and what’s +more he told old Nurse we might, only he said we must always say where we +wanted to go, and if it was right she would let us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Three cheers for thoughtful Jane,” cried Cyril, now roused at last +from his yawning despair. “I say, let’s go now.” +</p> + +<p> +So they went, old Nurse only begging them to be careful of crossings, and to +ask a policeman to assist in the more difficult cases. But they were used to +crossings, for they had lived in Camden Town and knew the Kentish Town Road +where the trams rush up and down like mad at all hours of the day and night, +and seem as though, if anything, they would rather run over you than not. +</p> + +<p> +They had promised to be home by dark, but it was July, so dark would be very +late indeed, and long past bedtime. +</p> + +<p> +They started to walk to St James’s Park, and all their pockets were +stuffed with bits of bread and the crusts of toast, to feed the ducks with. +They started, I repeat, but they never got there. +</p> + +<p> +Between Fitzroy Street and St James’s Park there are a great many +streets, and, if you go the right way you will pass a great many shops that you +cannot possibly help stopping to look at. The children stopped to look at +several with gold-lace and beads and pictures and jewellery and dresses, and +hats, and oysters and lobsters in their windows, and their sorrow did not seem +nearly so impossible to bear as it had done in the best parlour at No. 300, +Fitzroy Street. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, by some wonderful chance turn of Robert’s (who had been voted +Captain because the girls thought it would be good for him—and indeed he +thought so himself—and of course Cyril couldn’t vote against him +because it would have looked like a mean jealousy), they came into the little +interesting criss-crossy streets that held the most interesting shops of +all—the shops where live things were sold. There was one shop window +entirely filled with cages, and all sorts of beautiful birds in them. The +children were delighted till they remembered how they had once wished for wings +themselves, and had had them—and then they felt how desperately unhappy +anything with wings must be if it is shut up in a cage and not allowed to fly. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be fairly beastly to be a bird in a cage,” said Cyril. +“Come on!” +</p> + +<p> +They went on, and Cyril tried to think out a scheme for making his fortune as a +gold-digger at Klondyke, and then buying all the caged birds in the world and +setting them free. Then they came to a shop that sold cats, but the cats were +in cages, and the children could not help wishing someone would buy all the +cats and put them on hearthrugs, which are the proper places for cats. And +there was the dog-shop, and that was not a happy thing to look at either, +because all the dogs were chained or caged, and all the dogs, big and little, +looked at the four children with sad wistful eyes and wagged beseeching tails +as if they were trying to say, “Buy me! buy me! buy me! and let me go for +a walk with you; oh, do buy me, and buy my poor brothers too! Do! do! +do!” They almost said, “Do! do! do!” plain to the ear, as +they whined; all but one big Irish terrier, and he growled when Jane patted +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Grrrrr,” he seemed to say, as he looked at them from the back +corner of his eye—“<i>You</i> won’t buy me. Nobody +will—ever—I shall die chained up—and I don’t know that +I care how soon it is, either!” +</p> + +<p> +I don’t know that the children would have understood all this, only once +they had been in a besieged castle, so they knew how hateful it is to be kept +in when you want to get out. +</p> + +<p> +Of course they could not buy any of the dogs. They did, indeed, ask the price +of the very, very smallest, and it was sixty-five pounds—but that was +because it was a Japanese toy spaniel like the Queen once had her portrait +painted with, when she was only Princess of Wales. But the children thought, if +the smallest was all that money, the biggest would run into thousands—so +they went on. +</p> + +<p> +And they did not stop at any more cat or dog or bird shops, but passed them by, +and at last they came to a shop that seemed as though it only sold creatures +that did not much mind where they were—such as goldfish and white mice, +and sea-anemones and other aquarium beasts, and lizards and toads, and +hedgehogs and tortoises, and tame rabbits and guinea-pigs. And there they +stopped for a long time, and fed the guinea-pigs with bits of bread through the +cage-bars, and wondered whether it would be possible to keep a sandy-coloured +double-lop in the basement of the house in Fitzroy Street. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose old Nurse would mind <i>very</i> much,” said +Jane. “Rabbits are most awfully tame sometimes. I expect it would know +her voice and follow her all about.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’d tumble over it twenty times a day,” said Cyril; +“now a snake—” +</p> + +<p> +“There aren’t any snakes,” said Robert hastily, “and +besides, I never could cotton to snakes somehow—I wonder why.” +</p> + +<p> +“Worms are as bad,” said Anthea, “and eels and slugs—I +think it’s because we don’t like things that haven’t got +legs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father says snakes have got legs hidden away inside of them,” said +Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—and he says <i>we’ve</i> got tails hidden away inside +<i>us</i>—but it doesn’t either of it come to anything +<i>really</i>,” said Anthea. “I hate things that haven’t any +legs.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s worse when they have too many,” said Jane with a +shudder, “think of centipedes!” +</p> + +<p> +They stood there on the pavement, a cause of some inconvenience to the +passersby, and thus beguiled the time with conversation. Cyril was leaning his +elbow on the top of a hutch that had seemed empty when they had inspected the +whole edifice of hutches one by one, and he was trying to reawaken the interest +of a hedgehog that had curled itself into a ball earlier in the interview, when +a small, soft voice just below his elbow said, quietly, plainly and quite +unmistakably—not in any squeak or whine that had to be +translated—but in downright common English— +</p> + +<p> +“Buy me—do—please buy me!” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril started as though he had been pinched, and jumped a yard away from the +hutch. +</p> + +<p> +“Come back—oh, come back!” said the voice, rather louder but +still softly; “stoop down and pretend to be tying up your +bootlace—I see it’s undone, as usual.” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril mechanically obeyed. He knelt on one knee on the dry, hot dusty pavement, +peered into the darkness of the hutch and found himself face to face +with—the Psammead! +</p> + +<p> +It seemed much thinner than when he had last seen it. It was dusty and dirty, +and its fur was untidy and ragged. It had hunched itself up into a miserable +lump, and its long snail’s eyes were drawn in quite tight so that they +hardly showed at all. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen,” said the Psammead, in a voice that sounded as though it +would begin to cry in a minute, “I don’t think the creature who +keeps this shop will ask a very high price for me. I’ve bitten him more +than once, and I’ve made myself look as common as I can. He’s never +had a glance from my beautiful, beautiful eyes. Tell the others I’m +here—but tell them to look at some of those low, common beasts while +I’m talking to you. The creature inside mustn’t think you care much +about me, or he’ll put a price upon me far, far beyond your means. I +remember in the dear old days last summer you never had much money. Oh—I +never thought I should be so glad to see you—I never did.” It +sniffed, and shot out its long snail’s eyes expressly to drop a tear well +away from its fur. “Tell the others I’m here, and then I’ll +tell you exactly what to do about buying me.” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril tied his bootlace into a hard knot, stood up and addressed the others in +firm tones— +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” he said, “I’m not kidding—and I +appeal to your honour,” an appeal which in this family was never made in +vain. “Don’t look at that hutch—look at the white rat. Now +you are not to look at that hutch whatever I say.” +</p> + +<p> +He stood in front of it to prevent mistakes. +</p> + +<p> +“Now get yourselves ready for a great surprise. In that hutch +there’s an old friend of ours—<i>don’t</i> look!—Yes; +it’s the Psammead, the good old Psammead! it wants us to buy it. It says +you’re not to look at it. Look at the white rat and count your money! On +your honour don’t look!” +</p> + +<p> +The others responded nobly. They looked at the white rat till they quite stared +him out of countenance, so that he went and sat up on his hind legs in a far +corner and hid his eyes with his front paws, and pretended he was washing his +face. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril stooped again, busying himself with the other bootlace and listened for +the Psammead’s further instructions. +</p> + +<p> +“Go in,” said the Psammead, “and ask the price of lots of +other things. Then say, ‘What do you want for that monkey that’s +lost its tail—the mangy old thing in the third hutch from the end.’ +Oh—don’t mind <i>my</i> feelings—call me a mangy +monkey—I’ve tried hard enough to look like one! I don’t think +he’ll put a high price on me—I’ve bitten him eleven times +since I came here the day before yesterday. If he names a bigger price than you +can afford, say you wish you had the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you can’t give us wishes. I’ve promised never to have +another wish from you,” said the bewildered Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a silly little idiot,” said the Sand-fairy in +trembling but affectionate tones, “but find out how much money +you’ve got between you, and do exactly what I tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril, pointing a stiff and unmeaning finger at the white rat, so as to pretend +that its charms alone employed his tongue, explained matters to the others, +while the Psammead hunched itself, and bunched itself, and did its very best to +make itself look uninteresting. +</p> + +<p> +Then the four children filed into the shop. +</p> + +<p> +“How much do you want for that white rat?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Eightpence,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“And the guinea-pigs?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eighteenpence to five bob, according to the breed.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the lizards?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ninepence each.” +</p> + +<p> +“And toads?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fourpence. Now look here,” said the greasy owner of all this caged +life with a sudden ferocity which made the whole party back hurriedly on to the +wainscoting of hutches with which the shop was lined. “Lookee here. I +ain’t agoin’ to have you a comin’ in here a turnin’ the +whole place outer winder, an’ prizing every animile in the stock just for +your larks, so don’t think it! If you’re a buyer, <i>be</i> a +buyer—but I never had a customer yet as wanted to buy mice, and lizards, +and toads, and guineas all at once. So hout you goes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! wait a minute,” said the wretched Cyril, feeling how foolishly +yet well-meaningly he had carried out the Psammead’s instructions. +“Just tell me one thing. What do you want for the mangy old monkey in the +third hutch from the end?” +</p> + +<p> +The shopman only saw in this a new insult. +</p> + +<p> +“Mangy young monkey yourself,” said he; “get along with your +blooming cheek. Hout you goes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! don’t be so cross,” said Jane, losing her head +altogether, “don’t you see he really <i>does</i> want to know +<i>that!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Ho! does ’e indeed,” sneered the merchant. Then he scratched +his ear suspiciously, for he was a sharp business man, and he knew the ring of +truth when he heard it. His hand was bandaged, and three minutes before he +would have been glad to sell the “mangy old monkey” for ten +shillings. Now— +</p> + +<p> +“Ho! ’E does, does ’e,” he said, “then two pun +ten’s my price. He’s not got his fellow that monkey ain’t, +nor yet his match, not this side of the equator, which he comes from. And the +only one ever seen in London. Ought to be in the Zoo. Two pun ten, down on the +nail, or <i>hout</i> you goes!” +</p> + +<p> +The children looked at each other—twenty-three shillings and fivepence +was all they had in the world, and it would have been merely three and +fivepence, but for the sovereign which Father had given to them “between +them” at parting. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve only twenty-three shillings and fivepence,” said +Cyril, rattling the money in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-three farthings and somebody’s own cheek,” said the +dealer, for he did not believe that Cyril had so much money. +</p> + +<p> +There was a miserable pause. Then Anthea remembered, and said— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I <i>wish</i> I had two pounds ten.” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I, Miss, I’m sure,” said the man with bitter +politeness; “I wish you “ad, I’m sure!” +</p> + +<p> +Anthea’s hand was on the counter, something seemed to slide under it. She +lifted it. There lay five bright half sovereigns. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I <i>have</i> got it after all,” she said; +“here’s the money, now let’s have the Sammy,... the monkey I +mean.” +</p> + +<p> +The dealer looked hard at the money, but he made haste to put it in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“I only hope you come by it honest,” he said, shrugging his +shoulders. He scratched his ear again. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” he said, “I suppose I must let you have it, but +it’s worth thribble the money, so it is—” +</p> + +<p> +He slowly led the way out to the hutch—opened the door gingerly, and made +a sudden fierce grab at the Psammead, which the Psammead acknowledged in one +last long lingering bite. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, take the brute,” said the shopman, squeezing the Psammead so +tight that he nearly choked it. “It’s bit me to the marrow, it +have.” +</p> + +<p> +The man’s eyes opened as Anthea held out her arms. “Don’t +blame me if it tears your face off its bones,” he said, and the Psammead +made a leap from his dirty horny hands, and Anthea caught it in hers, which +were not very clean, certainly, but at any rate were soft and pink, and held it +kindly and closely. +</p> + +<p> +“But you can’t take it home like that,” Cyril said, “we +shall have a crowd after us,” and indeed two errand boys and a policeman +had already collected. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t give you nothink only a paper-bag, like what we put the +tortoises in,” said the man grudgingly. +</p> + +<p> +So the whole party went into the shop, and the shopman’s eyes nearly came +out of his head when, having given Anthea the largest paper-bag he could find, +he saw her hold it open, and the Psammead carefully creep into it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” he said, “if that there don’t beat +cockfighting! But p’raps you’ve met the brute afore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Cyril affably, “he’s an old friend of +ours.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I’d a known that,” the man rejoined, “you +shouldn’t a had him under twice the money. ’Owever,” he +added, as the children disappeared, “I ain’t done so bad, seeing as +I only give five bob for the beast. But then there’s the bites to take +into account!” +</p> + +<p> +The children trembling in agitation and excitement, carried home the Psammead, +trembling in its paper-bag. +</p> + +<p> +When they got it home, Anthea nursed it, and stroked it, and would have cried +over it, if she hadn’t remembered how it hated to be wet. +</p> + +<p> +When it recovered enough to speak, it said— +</p> + +<p> +“Get me sand; silver sand from the oil and colour shop. And get me +plenty.” +</p> + +<p> +They got the sand, and they put it and the Psammead in the round bath together, +and it rubbed itself, and rolled itself, and shook itself and scraped itself, +and scratched itself, and preened itself, till it felt clean and comfy, and +then it scrabbled a hasty hole in the sand, and went to sleep in it. +</p> + +<p> +The children hid the bath under the girls’ bed, and had supper. Old Nurse +had got them a lovely supper of bread and butter and fried onions. She was full +of kind and delicate thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +When Anthea woke the next morning, the Psammead was snuggling down between her +shoulder and Jane’s. +</p> + +<p> +“You have saved my life,” it said. “I know that man would +have thrown cold water on me sooner or later, and then I should have died. I +saw him wash out a guinea-pig’s hutch yesterday morning. I’m still +frightfully sleepy, I think I’ll go back to sand for another nap. Wake +the boys and this dormouse of a Jane, and when you’ve had your breakfasts +we’ll have a talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t <i>you</i> want any breakfast?” asked Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay I shall pick a bit presently,” it said; “but sand +is all I care about—it’s meat and drink to me, and coals and fire +and wife and children.” With these words it clambered down by the +bedclothes and scrambled back into the bath, where they heard it scratching +itself out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said Anthea, “anyhow our holidays won’t be dull +<i>now</i>. We’ve found the Psammead again.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Jane, beginning to put on her stockings. “We +shan’t be <i>dull</i>—but it’ll be only like having a pet dog +now it can’t give us wishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t be so discontented,” said Anthea. “If it +can’t do anything else it can tell us about Megatheriums and +things.” +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /> +THE HALF AMULET</h2> + +<p> +Long ago—that is to say last summer—the children, finding +themselves embarrassed by some wish which the Psammead had granted them, and +which the servants had not received in a proper spirit, had wished that the +servants might not notice the gifts which the Psammead gave. And when they +parted from the Psammead their last wish had been that they should meet it +again. Therefore they <i>had</i> met it (and it was jolly lucky for the +Psammead, as Robert pointed out). Now, of course, you see that the +Psammead’s being where it was, was the consequence of one of their +wishes, and therefore was a Psammead-wish, and as such could not be noticed by +the servants. And it was soon plain that in the Psammead’s opinion old +Nurse was still a servant, although she had now a house of her own, for she +never noticed the Psammead at all. And that was as well, for she would never +have consented to allow the girls to keep an animal and a bath of sand under +their bed. +</p> + +<p> +When breakfast had been cleared away—it was a very nice breakfast with +hot rolls to it, a luxury quite out of the common way—Anthea went and +dragged out the bath, and woke the Psammead. It stretched and shook itself. +</p> + +<p> +“You must have bolted your breakfast most unwholesomely,” it said, +“you can’t have been five minutes over it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve been nearly an hour,” said Anthea. +“Come—you know you promised.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here,” said the Psammead, sitting back on the sand and +shooting out its long eyes suddenly, “we’d better begin as we mean +to go on. It won’t do to have any misunderstanding, so I tell you plainly +that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>please</i>,” Anthea pleaded, “do wait till we get to +the others. They’ll think it most awfully sneakish of me to talk to you +without them; do come down, there’s a dear.” +</p> + +<p> +She knelt before the sand-bath and held out her arms. The Psammead must have +remembered how glad it had been to jump into those same little arms only the +day before, for it gave a little grudging grunt, and jumped once more. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea wrapped it in her pinafore and carried it downstairs. It was welcomed in +a thrilling silence. +</p> + +<p> +At last Anthea said, “Now then!” +</p> + +<p> +“What place is this?” asked the Psammead, shooting its eyes out and +turning them slowly round. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a sitting-room, of course,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I don’t like it,” said the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said Anthea kindly; “we’ll take you +anywhere you like if you want us to. What was it you were going to say upstairs +when I said the others wouldn’t like it if I stayed talking to you +without them?” +</p> + +<p> +It looked keenly at her, and she blushed. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be silly,” it said sharply. “Of course, +it’s quite natural that you should like your brothers and sisters to know +exactly how good and unselfish you were.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t,” said Jane. “Anthea was quite +right. What was it you were going to say when she stopped you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you,” said the Psammead, “since you’re +so anxious to know. I was going to say this. You’ve saved my +life—and I’m not ungrateful—but it doesn’t change your +nature or mine. You’re still very ignorant, and rather silly, and I am +worth a thousand of you any day of the week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you are!” Anthea was beginning but it interrupted her. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very rude to interrupt,” it said; “what I mean is +that I’m not going to stand any nonsense, and if you think what +you’ve done is to give you the right to pet me or make me demean myself +by playing with you, you’ll find out that what you think doesn’t +matter a single penny. See? It’s what <i>I</i> think that matters.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Cyril, “it always was, if you remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the Psammead, “then that’s settled. +We’re to be treated as we deserve. I with respect, and all of you +with—but I don’t wish to be offensive. Do you want me to tell you +how I got into that horrible den you bought me out of? Oh, I’m not +ungrateful! I haven’t forgotten it and I shan’t forget it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do tell us,” said Anthea. “I know you’re awfully +clever, but even with all your cleverness, I don’t believe you can +possibly know how—how respectfully we do respect you. Don’t +we?” +</p> + +<p> +The others all said yes—and fidgeted in their chairs. Robert spoke the +wishes of all when he said— +</p> + +<p> +“I do wish you’d go on.” So it sat up on the green-covered +table and went on. +</p> + +<p> +“When you’d gone away,” it said, “I went to sand for a +bit, and slept. I was tired out with all your silly wishes, and I felt as +though I hadn’t really been to sand for a year.” +</p> + +<p> +“To sand?” Jane repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“Where I sleep. You go to bed. I go to sand.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane yawned; the mention of bed made her feel sleepy. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said the Psammead, in offended tones. “I’m +sure <i>I</i> don’t want to tell you a long tale. A man caught me, and I +bit him. And he put me in a bag with a dead hare and a dead rabbit. And he took +me to his house and put me out of the bag into a basket with holes that I could +see through. And I bit him again. And then he brought me to this city, which I +am told is called the Modern Babylon—though it’s not a bit like the +old Babylon—and he sold me to the man you bought me from, and then I bit +them both. Now, what’s your news?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s not quite so much biting in our story,” said Cyril +regretfully; “in fact, there isn’t any. Father’s gone to +Manchuria, and Mother and The Lamb have gone to Madeira because Mother was ill, +and don’t I just wish that they were both safe home again.” +</p> + +<p> +Merely from habit, the Sand-fairy began to blow itself out, but it stopped +short suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“I forgot,” it said; “I can’t give you any more +wishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—but look here,” said Cyril, “couldn’t we call +in old Nurse and get her to say <i>she</i> wishes they were safe home. +I’m sure she does.” +</p> + +<p> +“No go,” said the Psammead. “It’s just the same as your +wishing yourself if you get some one else to wish for you. It won’t +act.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it did yesterday—with the man in the shop,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah yes,” said the creature, “but you didn’t <i>ask</i> +him to wish, and you didn’t know what would happen if he did. That +can’t be done again. It’s played out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you can’t help us at all,” said Jane; “oh—I +did think you could do something; I’ve been thinking about it ever since +we saved your life yesterday. I thought you’d be certain to be able to +fetch back Father, even if you couldn’t manage Mother.” +</p> + +<p> +And Jane began to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“Now <i>don’t</i>,” said the Psammead hastily; “you +know how it always upsets me if you cry. I can’t feel safe a moment. Look +here; you must have some new kind of charm.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s easier said than done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit of it,” said the creature; “there’s one of +the strongest charms in the world not a stone’s throw from where you +bought me yesterday. The man that I bit so—the first one, I +mean—went into a shop to ask how much something cost—I think he +said it was a concertina—and while he was telling the man in the shop how +much too much he wanted for it, I saw the charm in a sort of tray, with a lot +of other things. If you can only buy <i>that</i>, you will be able to have your +heart’s desire.” +</p> + +<p> +The children looked at each other and then at the Psammead. Then Cyril coughed +awkwardly and took sudden courage to say what everyone was thinking. +</p> + +<p> +“I do hope you won’t be waxy,” he said; “but it’s +like this: when you used to give us our wishes they almost always got us into +some row or other, and we used to think you wouldn’t have been pleased if +they hadn’t. Now, about this charm—we haven’t got over and +above too much tin, and if we blue it all on this charm and it turns out to be +not up to much—well—you see what I’m driving at, don’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I see that <i>you</i> don’t see more than the length of your nose, +and <i>that’s</i> not far,” said the Psammead crossly. “Look +here, I <i>had</i> to give you the wishes, and of course they turned out badly, +in a sort of way, because you hadn’t the sense to wish for what was good +for you. But this charm’s quite different. I haven’t <i>got</i> to +do this for you, it’s just my own generous kindness that makes me tell +you about it. So it’s bound to be all right. See?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be cross,” said Anthea, “Please, <i>please</i> +don’t. You see, it’s all we’ve got; we shan’t have any +more pocket-money till Daddy comes home—unless he sends us some in a +letter. But we <i>do</i> trust you. And I say all of you,” she went on, +“don’t you think it’s worth spending <i>all</i> the money, if +there’s even the chanciest chance of getting Father and Mother back safe +<i>now?</i> Just think of it! Oh, do let’s!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t care what you do,” said the Psammead; +“I’ll go back to sand again till you’ve made up your +minds.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, don’t!” said everybody; and Jane added, “We are +quite mind made-up—don’t you see we are? Let’s get our hats. +Will you come with us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said the Psammead; “how else would you find the +shop?” +</p> + +<p> +So everybody got its hat. The Psammead was put into a flat bass-bag that had +come from Farringdon Market with two pounds of filleted plaice in it. Now it +contained about three pounds and a quarter of solid Psammead, and the children +took it in turns to carry it. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not half the weight of The Lamb,” Robert said, and the +girls sighed. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead poked a wary eye out of the top of the basket every now and then, +and told the children which turnings to take. +</p> + +<p> +“How on earth do you know?” asked Robert. “I can’t +think how you do it.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Psammead said sharply, “No—I don’t suppose you +can.” +</p> + +<p> +At last they came to <i>the</i> shop. It had all sorts and kinds of things in +the window—concertinas, and silk handkerchiefs, china vases and tea-cups, +blue Japanese jars, pipes, swords, pistols, lace collars, silver spoons tied up +in half-dozens, and wedding-rings in a red lacquered basin. There were +officers’ epaulets and doctors’ lancets. There were tea-caddies +inlaid with red turtle-shell and brass curly-wurlies, plates of different kinds +of money, and stacks of different kinds of plates. There was a beautiful +picture of a little girl washing a dog, which Jane liked very much. And in the +middle of the window there was a dirty silver tray full of mother-of-pearl card +counters, old seals, paste buckles, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of little dingy +odds and ends. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead put its head quite out of the fish-basket to look in the window, +when Cyril said— +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a tray there with rubbish in it.” +</p> + +<p> +And then its long snail’s eyes saw something that made them stretch out +so much that they were as long and thin as new slate-pencils. Its fur bristled +thickly, and its voice was quite hoarse with excitement as it whispered— +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it! That’s it! There, under that blue and yellow +buckle, you can see a bit sticking out. It’s red. Do you see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it that thing something like a horse-shoe?” asked Cyril. +“And red, like the common sealing-wax you do up parcels with?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s it,” said the Psammead. “Now, you do just +as you did before. Ask the price of other things. That blue buckle would do. +Then the man will get the tray out of the window. I think you’d better be +the one,” it said to Anthea. “We’ll wait out here.” +</p> + +<p> +So the others flattened their noses against the shop window, and presently a +large, dirty, short-fingered hand with a very big diamond ring came stretching +through the green half-curtains at the back of the shop window and took away +the tray. +</p> + +<p> +They could not see what was happening in the interview between Anthea and the +Diamond Ring, and it seemed to them that she had had time—if she had had +money—to buy everything in the shop before the moment came when she stood +before them, her face wreathed in grins, as Cyril said later, and in her hand +the charm. +</p> + +<p> +It was something like this: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig01.jpg" width="184" height="400" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +and it was made of a red, smooth, softly shiny stone. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got it,” Anthea whispered, just opening her hand to +give the others a glimpse of it. “Do let’s get home. We can’t +stand here like stuck-pigs looking at it in the street.” +</p> + +<p> +So home they went. The parlour in Fitzroy Street was a very flat background to +magic happenings. Down in the country among the flowers and green fields +anything had seemed—and indeed had been—possible. But it was hard +to believe that anything really wonderful could happen so near the Tottenham +Court Road. But the Psammead was there—and it in itself was wonderful. +And it could talk—and it had shown them where a charm could be bought +that would make the owner of it perfectly happy. So the four children hurried +home, taking very long steps, with their chins stuck out, and their mouths shut +very tight indeed. They went so fast that the Psammead was quite shaken about +in its fish-bag, but it did not say anything—perhaps for fear of +attracting public notice. +</p> + +<p> +They got home at last, very hot indeed, and set the Psammead on the green +tablecloth. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then!” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +But the Psammead had to have a plate of sand fetched for it, for it was quite +faint. When it had refreshed itself a little it said— +</p> + +<p> +“Now then! Let me see the charm,” and Anthea laid it on the green +table-cover. The Psammead shot out his long eyes to look at it, then it turned +them reproachfully on Anthea and said— +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s only half of it here!” +</p> + +<p> +This was indeed a blow. +</p> + +<p> +“It was all there was,” said Anthea, with timid firmness. She knew +it was not her fault. +</p> + +<p> +“There should be another piece,” said the Psammead, “and a +sort of pin to fasten the two together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t half any good?”—“Won’t it work +without the other bit?”—“It cost +seven-and-six.”—“Oh, bother, bother, +bother!”—“Don’t be silly little idiots!” said +everyone and the Psammead altogether. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was a wretched silence. Cyril broke it— +</p> + +<p> +“What shall we do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go back to the shop and see if they haven’t got the other +half,” said the Psammead. “I’ll go to sand till you come +back. Cheer up! Even the bit you’ve got is <i>some</i> good, but +it’ll be no end of a bother if you can’t find the other.” +</p> + +<p> +So Cyril went to the shop. And the Psammead to sand. And the other three went +to dinner, which was now ready. And old Nurse was very cross that Cyril was not +ready too. +</p> + +<p> +The three were watching at the windows when Cyril returned, and even before he +was near enough for them to see his face there was something about the slouch +of his shoulders and set of his knickerbockers and the way he dragged his boots +along that showed but too plainly that his errand had been in vain. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” they all said, hoping against hope on the front-door step. +</p> + +<p> +“No go,” Cyril answered; “the man said the thing was perfect. +He said it was a Roman lady’s locket, and people shouldn’t buy +curios if they didn’t know anything about arky—something or other, +and that he never went back on a bargain, because it wasn’t business, and +he expected his customers to act the same. He was simply +nasty—that’s what he was, and I want my dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +It was plain that Cyril was not pleased. +</p> + +<p> +The unlikeliness of anything really interesting happening in that parlour lay +like a weight of lead on everyone’s spirits. Cyril had his dinner, and +just as he was swallowing the last mouthful of apple-pudding there was a +scratch at the door. Anthea opened it and in walked the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” it said, when it had heard the news, “things might be +worse. Only you won’t be surprised if you have a few adventures before +you get the other half. You want to get it, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather,” was the general reply. “And we don’t mind +adventures.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the Psammead, “I seem to remember that about you. +Well, sit down and listen with all your ears. Eight, are there? Right—I +am glad you know arithmetic. Now pay attention, because I don’t intend to +tell you everything twice over.” +</p> + +<p> +As the children settled themselves on the floor—it was far more +comfortable than the chairs, as well as more polite to the Psammead, who was +stroking its whiskers on the hearth-rug—a sudden cold pain caught at +Anthea’s heart. Father—Mother—the darling Lamb—all far +away. Then a warm, comfortable feeling flowed through her. The Psammead was +here, and at least half a charm, and there were to be adventures. (If you +don’t know what a cold pain is, I am glad for your sakes, and I hope you +never may.) +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the Psammead cheerily, “you are not particularly +nice, nor particularly clever, and you’re not at all good-looking. Still, +you’ve saved my life—oh, when I think of that man and his pail of +water!—so I’ll tell you all I know. At least, of course I +can’t do that, because I know far too much. But I’ll tell you all I +know about this red thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do! Do! Do! Do!” said everyone. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said the Psammead. “This thing is half of an +Amulet that can do all sorts of things; it can make the corn grow, and the +waters flow, and the trees bear fruit, and the little new beautiful babies +come. (Not that babies <i>are</i> beautiful, of course,” it broke off to +say, “but their mothers think they are—and as long as you think a +thing’s true it <i>is</i> true as far as you’re concerned.)” +</p> + +<p> +Robert yawned. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead went on. +</p> + +<p> +“The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people +unhappy—jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness, +selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet was +made. Don’t you think it would be nice to have it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very,” said the children, quite without enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“And it can give you strength and courage.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s better,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“And virtue.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it’s nice to have that,” said Jane, but not with +much interest. +</p> + +<p> +“And it can give you your heart’s desire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’re talking,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am,” retorted the Psammead tartly, “so +there’s no need for you to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heart’s desire is good enough for me,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but,” Anthea ventured, “all that’s what the +<i>whole</i> charm can do. There’s something that the half we’ve +got can win off its own bat—isn’t there?” She appealed to the +Psammead. It nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” it said; “the half has the power to take you anywhere +you like to look for the other half.” +</p> + +<p> +This seemed a brilliant prospect till Robert asked— +</p> + +<p> +“Does it know where to look?” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead shook its head and answered, “I don’t think it’s +likely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Robert, “we might as well look for a needle in a +bottle of hay. Yes—it <i>is</i> bottle, and not bundle, Father said +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said the Psammead briskly-, “you think you know +everything, but you are quite mistaken. The first thing is to get the thing to +talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can it?” Jane questioned. Jane’s question did not mean that +she thought it couldn’t, for in spite of the parlour furniture the +feeling of magic was growing deeper and thicker, and seemed to fill the room +like a dream of a scented fog. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it can. I suppose you can read.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes!” Everyone was rather hurt at the question. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then—all you’ve got to do is to read the name +that’s written on the part of the charm that you’ve got. And as +soon as you say the name out loud the thing will have power to do—well, +several things.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. The red charm was passed from hand to hand. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no name on it,” said Cyril at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense,” said the Psammead; “what’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>that!</i>” said Cyril, “it’s not reading. It +looks like pictures of chickens and snakes and things.” +</p> + +<p> +This was what was on the charm: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig02.jpg" width="600" height="85" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +“I’ve no patience with you,” said the Psammead; “if you +can’t read you must find some one who can. A priest now?” +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t know any priests,” said Anthea; “we know a +clergyman—he’s called a priest in the prayer-book, you +know—but he only knows Greek and Latin and Hebrew, and this isn’t +any of those—I know.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead stamped a furry foot angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I’d never seen you,” it said; “you aren’t +any more good than so many stone images. Not so much, if I’m to tell the +truth. Is there no wise man in your Babylon who can pronounce the names of the +Great Ones?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a poor learned gentleman upstairs,” said Anthea, +“we might try him. He has a lot of stone images in his room, and +iron-looking ones too—we peeped in once when he was out. Old Nurse says +he doesn’t eat enough to keep a canary alive. He spends it all on stones +and things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try him,” said the Psammead, “only be careful. If he knows a +greater name than this and uses it against you, your charm will be of no use. +Bind him first with the chains of honour and upright dealing. And then ask his +aid—oh, yes, you’d better all go; you can put me to sand as you go +upstairs. I must have a few minutes’ peace and quietness.” +</p> + +<p> +So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed their +hair—this was Anthea’s idea—and went up to knock at the door +of the “poor learned gentleman”, and to “bind him with the +chains of honour and upright dealing”. +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /> +THE PAST</h2> + +<p> +The learned gentleman had let his dinner get quite cold. It was mutton chop, +and as it lay on the plate it looked like a brown island in the middle of a +frozen pond, because the grease of the gravy had become cold, and consequently +white. It looked very nasty, and it was the first thing the children saw when, +after knocking three times and receiving no reply, one of them ventured to turn +the handle and softly to open the door. The chop was on the end of a long table +that ran down one side of the room. The table had images on it and queer-shaped +stones, and books. And there were glass cases fixed against the wall behind, +with little strange things in them. The cases were rather like the ones you see +in jewellers’ shops. +</p> + +<p> +The “poor learned gentleman” was sitting at a table in the window, +looking at something very small which he held in a pair of fine pincers. He had +a round spy-glass sort of thing in one eye—which reminded the children of +watchmakers, and also of the long snail’s eyes of the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman was very long and thin, and his long, thin boots stuck out under +the other side of his table. He did not hear the door open, and the children +stood hesitating. At last Robert gave the door a push, and they all started +back, for in the middle of the wall that the door had hidden was a +mummy-case—very, very, very big—painted in red and yellow and green +and black, and the face of it seemed to look at them quite angrily. +</p> + +<p> +You know what a mummy-case is like, of course? If you don’t you had +better go to the British Museum at once and find out. Anyway, it is not at all +the sort of thing that you expect to meet in a top-floor front in Bloomsbury, +looking as though it would like to know what business <i>you</i> had there. +</p> + +<p> +So everyone said, “Oh!” rather loud, and their boots clattered as +they stumbled back. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman took the glass out of his eye and said—“I beg +your pardon,” in a very soft, quiet pleasant voice—the voice of a +gentleman who has been to Oxford. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s us that beg yours,” said Cyril politely. “We are +sorry to disturb you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” said the gentleman, rising—with the most +distinguished courtesy, Anthea told herself. “I am delighted to see you. +Won’t you sit down? No, not there; allow me to move that papyrus.” +</p> + +<p> +He cleared a chair, and stood smiling and looking kindly through his large, +round spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +“He treats us like grown-ups,” whispered Robert, “and he +doesn’t seem to know how many of us there are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush,” said Anthea, “it isn’t manners to whisper. You +say, Cyril—go ahead.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re very sorry to disturb you,” said Cyril politely, +“but we did knock three times, and you didn’t say ‘Come +in’, or ‘Run away now’, or that you couldn’t be +bothered just now, or to come when you weren’t so busy, or any of the +things people do say when you knock at doors, so we opened it. We knew you were +in because we heard you sneeze while we were waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said the gentleman; “do sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has found out there are four of us,” said Robert, as the +gentleman cleared three more chairs. He put the things off them carefully on +the floor. The first chair had things like bricks that tiny, tiny birds’ +feet have walked over when the bricks were soft, only the marks were in regular +lines. The second chair had round things on it like very large, fat, long, pale +beads. And the last chair had a pile of dusty papers on it. +</p> + +<p> +The children sat down. +</p> + +<p> +“We know you are very, very learned,” said Cyril, “and we +have got a charm, and we want you to read the name on it, because it +isn’t in Latin or Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the languages <i>we</i> +know—” +</p> + +<p> +“A thorough knowledge of even those languages is a very fair foundation +on which to build an education,” said the gentleman politely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Cyril blushing, “but we only know them to look at, +except Latin—and I’m only in Caesar with that.” +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman took off his spectacles and laughed. His laugh sounded rusty, +Cyril thought, as though it wasn’t often used. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course!” he said. “I’m sure I beg your pardon. I +think I must have been in a dream. You are the children who live downstairs, +are you not? Yes. I have seen you as I have passed in and out. And you have +found something that you think to be an antiquity, and you’ve brought it +to show me? That was very kind. I should like to inspect it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid we didn’t think about your liking to inspect +it,” said the truthful Anthea. “It was just for +<i>us</i>—because we wanted to know the name on it—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes—and, I say,” Robert interjected, “you +won’t think it rude of us if we ask you first, before we show it, to be +bound in the what-do-you-call-it of—” +</p> + +<p> +“In the bonds of honour and upright dealing,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you,” said the +gentleman, with gentle nervousness. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s this way,” said Cyril. “We’ve got +part of a charm. And the Sammy—I mean, something told us it would work, +though it’s only half a one; but it won’t work unless we can say +the name that’s on it. But, of course, if you’ve got another name +that can lick ours, our charm will be no go; so we want you to give us your +word of honour as a gentleman—though I’m sure, now I’ve seen +you, that it’s not necessary; but still I’ve promised to ask you, +so we must. Will you please give us your honourable word not to say any name +stronger than the name on our charm?” +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman had put on his spectacles again and was looking at Cyril through +them. He now said: “Bless me!” more than once, adding, “Who +told you all this?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell you,” said Cyril. “I’m very sorry, +but I can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Some faint memory of a far-off childhood must have come to the learned +gentleman just then, for he smiled. “I see,” he said. “It is +some sort of game that you are engaged in? Of course! Yes! Well, I will +certainly promise. Yet I wonder how you heard of the names of power?” +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t tell you that either,” said Cyril; and Anthea said, +“Here is our charm,” and held it out. +</p> + +<p> +With politeness, but without interest, the gentleman took it. But after the +first glance all his body suddenly stiffened, as a pointer’s does when he +sees a partridge. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” he said in quite a changed voice, and carried the +charm to the window. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at it; he turned it over. He fixed his spy-glass in his eye and +looked again. No one said anything. Only Robert made a shuffling noise with his +feet till Anthea nudged him to shut up. +</p> + +<p> +At last the learned gentleman drew a long breath. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you find this?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“We didn’t find it. We bought it at a shop. Jacob Absalom the name +is—not far from Charing Cross,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“We gave seven-and-sixpence for it,” added Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not for sale, I suppose? You do not wish to part with it? I ought +to tell you that it is extremely valuable—extraordinarily valuable, I may +say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Cyril, “we know that, so of course we want to +keep it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep it carefully, then,” said the gentleman impressively; +“and if ever you should wish to part with it, may I ask you to give me +the refusal of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“The refusal?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, do not sell it to anyone else until you have given me the +opportunity of buying it.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Cyril, “we won’t. But we don’t +want to sell it. We want to make it do things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you can play at that as well as at anything else,” said +the gentleman; “but I’m afraid the days of magic are over.” +</p> + +<p> +“They aren’t <i>really</i>,” said Anthea earnestly. +“You’d see they aren’t if I could tell you about our last +summer holidays. Only I mustn’t. Thank you very much. And can you read +the name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I can read it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you tell it us?” +</p> + +<p> +“The name,” said the gentleman, “is Ur Hekau Setcheh.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ur Hekau Setcheh,” repeated Cyril. “Thanks awfully. I do +hope we haven’t taken up too much of your time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said the gentleman. “And do let me entreat you +to be very, very careful of that most valuable specimen.” +</p> + +<p> +They said “Thank you” in all the different polite ways they could +think of, and filed out of the door and down the stairs. Anthea was last. +Half-way down to the first landing she turned and ran up again. +</p> + +<p> +The door was still open, and the learned gentleman and the mummy-case were +standing opposite to each other, and both looked as though they had stood like +that for years. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman started when Anthea put her hand on his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you won’t be cross and say it’s not my +business,” she said, “but do look at your chop! Don’t you +think you ought to eat it? Father forgets his dinner sometimes when he’s +writing, and Mother always says I ought to remind him if she’s not at +home to do it herself, because it’s so bad to miss your regular meals. So +I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind my reminding you, because you +don’t seem to have anyone else to do it.” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at the mummy-case; <i>it</i> certainly did not look as though it +would ever think of reminding people of their meals. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman looked at her for a moment before he said— +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, my dear. It was a kindly thought. No, I haven’t anyone +to remind me about things like that.” +</p> + +<p> +He sighed, and looked at the chop. +</p> + +<p> +“It looks very nasty,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, “it does. I’ll eat it immediately, +before I forget.” +</p> + +<p> +As he ate it he sighed more than once. Perhaps because the chop was nasty, +perhaps because he longed for the charm which the children did not want to +sell, perhaps because it was so long since anyone cared whether he ate his +chops or forgot them. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea caught the others at the stair-foot. They woke the Psammead, and it +taught them exactly how to use the word of power, and to make the charm speak. +I am not going to tell you how this is done, because you might try to do it. +And for you any such trying would be almost sure to end in disappointment. +Because in the first place it is a thousand million to one against your ever +getting hold of the right sort of charm, and if you did, there would be hardly +any chance at all of your finding a learned gentleman clever enough and kind +enough to read the word for you. +</p> + +<p> +The children and the Psammead crouched in a circle on the floor—in the +girls’ bedroom, because in the parlour they might have been interrupted +by old Nurse’s coming in to lay the cloth for tea—and the charm was +put in the middle of the circle. +</p> + +<p> +The sun shone splendidly outside, and the room was very light. Through the open +window came the hum and rattle of London, and in the street below they could +hear the voice of the milkman. +</p> + +<p> +When all was ready, the Psammead signed to Anthea to say the word. And she said +it. +</p> + +<p> +Instantly the whole light of all the world seemed to go out. The room was dark. +The world outside was dark—darker than the darkest night that ever was. +And all the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence deeper than any +silence you have ever even dreamed of imagining. It was like being suddenly +deaf and blind, only darker and quieter even than that. +</p> + +<p> +But before the children had got over the sudden shock of it enough to be +frightened, a faint, beautiful light began to show in the middle of the circle, +and at the same moment a faint, beautiful voice began to speak. The light was +too small for one to see anything by, and the voice was too small for you to +hear what it said. You could just see the light and just hear the voice. +</p> + +<p> +But the light grew stronger. It was greeny, like glow-worms’ lamps, and +it grew and grew till it was as though thousands and thousands of glow-worms +were signalling to their winged sweethearts from the middle of the circle. And +the voice grew, not so much in loudness as in sweetness (though it grew louder, +too), till it was so sweet that you wanted to cry with pleasure just at the +sound of it. It was like nightingales, and the sea, and the fiddle, and the +voice of your mother when you have been a long time away, and she meets you at +the door when you get home. +</p> + +<p> +And the voice said— +</p> + +<p> +“Speak. What is it that you would hear?” +</p> + +<p> +I cannot tell you what language the voice used. I only know that everyone +present understood it perfectly. If you come to think of it, there must be some +language that everyone could understand, if we only knew what it was. Nor can I +tell you how the charm spoke, nor whether it was the charm that spoke, or some +presence in the charm. The children could not have told you either. Indeed, +they could not look at the charm while it was speaking, because the light was +too bright. They looked instead at the green radiance on the faded +Kidderminster carpet at the edge of the circle. They all felt very quiet, and +not inclined to ask questions or fidget with their feet. For this was not like +the things that had happened in the country when the Psammead had given them +their wishes. That had been funny somehow, and this was not. It was something +like <i>Arabian Nights</i> magic, and something like being in church. No one +cared to speak. +</p> + +<p> +It was Cyril who said at last— +</p> + +<p> +“Please we want to know where the other half of the charm is.” +</p> + +<p> +“The part of the Amulet which is lost,” said the beautiful voice, +“was broken and ground into the dust of the shrine that held it. It and +the pin that joined the two halves are themselves dust, and the dust is +scattered over many lands and sunk in many seas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say!” murmured Robert, and a blank silence fell. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s all up?” said Cyril at last; “it’s no +use our looking for a thing that’s smashed into dust, and the dust +scattered all over the place.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you would find it,” said the voice, “You must seek it +where it still is, perfect as ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“In the Past you may find it,” said the voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we <i>may</i> find it,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead whispered crossly, “Don’t you understand? The thing +existed in the Past. If you were in the Past, too, you could find it. +It’s very difficult to make you understand things. Time and space are +only forms of thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you don’t,” said the Psammead, “and it +doesn’t matter if you don’t, either. What I mean is that if you +were only made the right way, you could see everything happening in the same +place at the same time. Now do you see?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid <i>I</i> don’t,” said Anthea; +“I’m sorry I’m so stupid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, at any rate, you see this. That lost half of the Amulet is in the +Past. Therefore it’s in the Past we must look for it. I mustn’t +speak to the charm myself. Ask it things! Find out!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where can we find the other part of you?” asked Cyril obediently. +</p> + +<p> +“In the Past,” said the voice. +</p> + +<p> +“What part of the Past?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may not tell you. If you will choose a time, I will take you to the +place that then held it. You yourselves must find it.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did you see it last?” asked Anthea—“I mean, when +was it taken away from you?” +</p> + +<p> +The beautiful voice answered— +</p> + +<p> +“That was thousands of years ago. The Amulet was perfect then, and lay in +a shrine, the last of many shrines, and I worked wonders. Then came strange men +with strange weapons and destroyed my shrine, and the Amulet they bore away +with many captives. But of these, one, my priest, knew the word of power, and +spoke it for me, so that the Amulet became invisible, and thus returned to my +shrine, but the shrine was broken down, and ere any magic could rebuild it one +spoke a word before which my power bowed down and was still. And the Amulet lay +there, still perfect, but enslaved. Then one coming with stones to rebuild the +shrine, dropped a hewn stone on the Amulet as it lay, and one half was sundered +from the other. I had no power to seek for that which was lost. And there being +none to speak the word of power, I could not rejoin it. So the Amulet lay in +the dust of the desert many thousand years, and at last came a small man, a +conqueror with an army, and after him a crowd of men who sought to seem wise, +and one of these found half the Amulet and brought it to this land. But none +could read the name. So I lay still. And this man dying and his son after him, +the Amulet was sold by those who came after to a merchant, and from him you +bought it, and it is here, and now, the name of power having been spoken, I +also am here.” +</p> + +<p> +This is what the voice said. I think it must have meant Napoleon by the small +man, the conqueror. Because I know I have been told that he took an army to +Egypt, and that afterwards a lot of wise people went grubbing in the sand, and +fished up all sorts of wonderful things, older than you would think possible. +And of these I believe this charm to have been one, and the most wonderful one +of all. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone listened: and everyone tried to think. It is not easy to do this +clearly when you have been listening to the kind of talk I have told you about. +</p> + +<p> +At last Robert said— +</p> + +<p> +“Can you take us into the Past—to the shrine where you and the +other thing were together. If you could take us there, we might find the other +part still there after all these thousands of years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still there? silly!” said Cyril. “Don’t you see, if we +go back into the Past it won’t be thousands of years ago. It will be +<i>now</i> for us—won’t it?” He appealed to the Psammead, who +said— +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not so far off the idea as you usually are!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Anthea, “will you take us back to when there was +a shrine and you were safe in it—all of you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the voice. “You must hold me up, and speak the +word of power, and one by one, beginning with the first-born, you shall pass +through me into the Past. But let the last that passes be the one that holds +me, and let him not lose his hold, lest you lose me, and so remain in the Past +for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a nasty idea,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“When you desire to return,” the beautiful voice went on, +“hold me up towards the East, and speak the word. Then, passing through +me, you shall return to this time and it shall be the present to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how—” +</p> + +<p> +A bell rang loudly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh crikey!” exclaimed Robert, “that’s tea! Will you +please make it proper daylight again so that we can go down. And thank you so +much for all your kindness.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you!” added +Anthea politely. +</p> + +<p> +The beautiful light faded slowly. The great darkness and silence came and these +suddenly changed to the dazzlement of day and the great soft, rustling sound of +London, that is like some vast beast turning over in its sleep. +</p> + +<p> +The children rubbed their eyes, the Psammead ran quickly to its sandy bath, and +the others went down to tea. And until the cups were actually filled tea seemed +less real than the beautiful voice and the greeny light. +</p> + +<p> +After tea Anthea persuaded the others to allow her to hang the charm round her +neck with a piece of string. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be so awful if it got lost,” she said: “it might +get lost anywhere, you know, and it would be rather beastly for us to have to +stay in the Past for ever and ever, wouldn’t it?” +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /> +EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO</h2> + +<p> +Next morning Anthea got old Nurse to allow her to take up the “poor +learned gentleman’s” breakfast. He did not recognize her at first, +but when he did he was vaguely pleased to see her. +</p> + +<p> +“You see I’m wearing the charm round my neck,” she said; +“I’m taking care of it—like you told us to.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” said he; “did you have a good game last +night?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will eat your breakfast before it’s cold, won’t +you?” said Anthea. “Yes, we had a splendid time. The charm made it +all dark, and then greeny light, and then it spoke. Oh! I wish you could have +heard it—it was such a darling voice—and it told us the other half +of it was lost in the Past, so of course we shall have to look for it +there!” +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman rubbed his hair with both hands and looked anxiously at +Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it’s natural—youthful imagination and so +forth,” he said. “Yet someone must have... Who told you that some +part of the charm was missing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell you,” she said. “I know it seems most +awfully rude, especially after being so kind about telling us the name of +power, and all that, but really, I’m not allowed to tell anybody anything +about the—the—the person who told me. You won’t forget your +breakfast, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman smiled feebly and then frowned—not a cross-frown, +but a puzzle-frown. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” he said, “I shall always be pleased if +you’ll look in—any time you’re passing you know—at +least...” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” she said; “goodbye. I’ll always tell you +anything I <i>may</i> tell.” +</p> + +<p> +He had not had many adventures with children in them, and he wondered whether +all children were like these. He spent quite five minutes in wondering before +he settled down to the fifty-second chapter of his great book on <i>The Secret +Rites of the Priests of Amen Rā</i>. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It is no use to pretend that the children did not feel a good deal of agitation +at the thought of going through the charm into the Past. That idea, that +perhaps they might stay in the Past and never get back again, was anything but +pleasing. Yet no one would have dared to suggest that the charm should not be +used; and though each was in its heart very frightened indeed, they would all +have joined in jeering at the cowardice of any one of them who should have +uttered the timid but natural suggestion, “Don’t +let’s!” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed necessary to make arrangements for being out all day, for there was +no reason to suppose that the sound of the dinner-bell would be able to reach +back into the Past, and it seemed unwise to excite old Nurse’s curiosity +when nothing they could say—not even the truth—could in any way +satisfy it. They were all very proud to think how well they had understood what +the charm and the Psammead had said about Time and Space and things like that, +and they were perfectly certain that it would be quite impossible to make old +Nurse understand a single word of it. So they merely asked her to let them take +their dinner out into Regent’s Park—and this, with the implied cold +mutton and tomatoes, was readily granted. +</p> + +<p> +“You can get yourselves some buns or sponge-cakes, or whatever you +fancy-like,” said old Nurse, giving Cyril a shilling. “Don’t +go getting jam-tarts, now—so messy at the best of times, and without +forks and plates ruination to your clothes, besides your not being able to wash +your hands and faces afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +So Cyril took the shilling, and they all started off. They went round by the +Tottenham Court Road to buy a piece of waterproof sheeting to put over the +Psammead in case it should be raining in the Past when they got there. For it +is almost certain death to a Psammead to get wet. +</p> + +<p> +The sun was shining very brightly, and even London looked pretty. Women were +selling roses from big baskets-full, and Anthea bought four roses, one each, +for herself and the others. They were red roses and smelt of summer—the +kind of roses you always want so desperately at about Christmas-time when you +can only get mistletoe, which is pale right through to its very scent, and +holly which pricks your nose if you try to smell it. So now everyone had a rose +in its buttonhole, and soon everyone was sitting on the grass in Regent’s +Park under trees whose leaves would have been clean, clear green in the +country, but here were dusty and yellowish, and brown at the edges. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got to go on with it,” said Anthea, “and as the +eldest has to go first, you’ll have to be last, Jane. You quite +understand about holding on to the charm as you go through, don’t you, +Pussy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I hadn’t got to be last,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall carry the Psammead if you like,” said Anthea. +“That is,” she added, remembering the beast’s queer temper, +“if it’ll let you.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead, however, was unexpectedly amiable. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t mind,” it said, “who carries me, so +long as it doesn’t drop me. I can’t bear being dropped.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane with trembling hands took the Psammead and its fish-basket under one arm. +The charm’s long string was hung round her neck. Then they all stood up. +Jane held out the charm at arm’s length, and Cyril solemnly pronounced +the word of power. +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke it the charm grew tall and broad, and he saw that Jane was just +holding on to the edge of a great red arch of very curious shape. The opening +of the arch was small, but Cyril saw that he could go through it. All round and +beyond the arch were the faded trees and trampled grass of Regent’s Park, +where the little ragged children were playing Ring-o’-Roses. But through +the opening of it shone a blaze of blue and yellow and red. Cyril drew a long +breath and stiffened his legs so that the others should not see that his knees +were trembling and almost knocking together. “Here goes!” he said, +and, stepping up through the arch, disappeared. Then followed Anthea. Robert, +coming next, held fast, at Anthea’s suggestion, to the sleeve of Jane, +who was thus dragged safely through the arch. And as soon as they were on the +other side of the arch there was no more arch at all and no more Regent’s +Park either, only the charm in Jane’s hand, and it was its proper size +again. They were now in a light so bright that they winked and blinked and +rubbed their eyes. During this dazzling interval Anthea felt for the charm and +pushed it inside Jane’s frock, so that it might be quite safe. When their +eyes got used to the new wonderful light the children looked around them. The +sky was very, very blue, and it sparkled and glittered and dazzled like the sea +at home when the sun shines on it. +</p> + +<p> +They were standing on a little clearing in a thick, low forest; there were +trees and shrubs and a close, thorny, tangly undergrowth. In front of them +stretched a bank of strange black mud, then came the browny-yellowy shining +ribbon of a river. Then more dry, caked mud and more greeny-browny jungle. The +only things that told that human people had been there were the clearing, a +path that led to it, and an odd arrangement of cut reeds in the river. +</p> + +<p> +They looked at each other. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said Robert, “this <i>is</i> a change of air!” +</p> + +<p> +It was. The air was hotter than they could have imagined, even in London in +August. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I knew where we were,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s a river, now—I wonder whether it’s the Amazon +or the Tiber, or what.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the Nile,” said the Psammead, looking out of the +fish-bag. +</p> + +<p> +“Then this is Egypt,” said Robert, who had once taken a geography +prize. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see any crocodiles,” Cyril objected. His prize had +been for natural history. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead reached out a hairy arm from its basket and pointed to a heap of +mud at the edge of the water. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you call that?” it said; and as it spoke the heap of mud +slid into the river just as a slab of damp mixed mortar will slip from a +bricklayer’s trowel. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said everybody. +</p> + +<p> +There was a crashing among the reeds on the other side of the water. +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s a river-horse!” said the Psammead, as a great +beast like an enormous slaty-blue slug showed itself against the black bank on +the far side of the stream. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a hippopotamus,” said Cyril; “it seems much more +real somehow than the one at the Zoo, doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad it’s being real on the other side of the +river,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +And now there was a crackling of reeds and twigs behind them. This was +horrible. Of course it might be another hippopotamus, or a crocodile, or a +lion—or, in fact, almost anything. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your hand on the charm, Jane,” said Robert hastily. “We +ought to have a means of escape handy. I’m dead certain this is the sort +of place where simply anything <i>might</i> happen to us.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe a hippopotamus is going to happen to us,” said +Jane—“a very, very big one.” +</p> + +<p> +They had all turned to face the danger. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be silly little duffers,” said the Psammead in its +friendly, informal way; “it’s not a river-horse. It’s a +human.” +</p> + +<p> +It was. It was a girl—of about Anthea’s age. Her hair was short and +fair, and though her skin was tanned by the sun, you could see that it would +have been fair too if it had had a chance. She had every chance of being +tanned, for she had no clothes to speak of, and the four English children, +carefully dressed in frocks, hats, shoes, stockings, coats, collars, and all +the rest of it, envied her more than any words of theirs or of mine could +possibly say. There was no doubt that here was the right costume for that +climate. +</p> + +<p> +She carried a pot on her head, of red and black earthenware. She did not see +the children, who shrank back against the edge of the jungle, and she went +forward to the brink of the river to fill her pitcher. As she went she made a +strange sort of droning, humming, melancholy noise all on two notes. Anthea +could not help thinking that perhaps the girl thought this noise was singing. +</p> + +<p> +The girl filled the pitcher and set it down by the river bank. Then she waded +into the water and stooped over the circle of cut reeds. She pulled half a +dozen fine fish out of the water within the reeds, killing each as she took it +out, and threading it on a long osier that she carried. Then she knotted the +osier, hung it on her arm, picked up the pitcher, and turned to come back. And +as she turned she saw the four children. The white dresses of Jane and Anthea +stood out like snow against the dark forest background. She screamed and the +pitcher fell, and the water was spilled out over the hard mud surface and over +the fish, which had fallen too. Then the water slowly trickled away into the +deep cracks. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be frightened,” Anthea cried, “we won’t +hurt you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you?” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +Now, once for all, I am not going to be bothered to tell you how it was that +the girl could understand Anthea and Anthea could understand the girl. +<i>You</i>, at any rate, would not understand <i>me</i>, if I tried to explain +it, any more than you can understand about time and space being only forms of +thought. You may think what you like. Perhaps the children had found out the +universal language which everyone can understand, and which wise men so far +have not found. You will have noticed long ago that they were singularly lucky +children, and they may have had this piece of luck as well as others. Or it may +have been that... but why pursue the question further? The fact remains that in +all their adventures the muddle-headed inventions which we call foreign +languages never bothered them in the least. They could always understand and be +understood. If you can explain this, please do. I daresay I could understand +your explanation, though you could never understand mine. +</p> + +<p> +So when the girl said, “Who are you?” everyone understood at once, +and Anthea replied— +</p> + +<p> +“We are children—just like you. Don’t be frightened. +Won’t you show us where you live?” +</p> + +<p> +Jane put her face right into the Psammead’s basket, and burrowed her +mouth into its fur to whisper— +</p> + +<p> +“Is it safe? Won’t they eat us? Are they cannibals?” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead shrugged its fur. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t make your voice buzz like that, it tickles my ears,” +it said rather crossly. “You can always get back to Regent’s Park +in time if you keep fast hold of the charm,” it said. +</p> + +<p> +The strange girl was trembling with fright. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea had a bangle on her arm. It was a sevenpenny-halfpenny trumpery thing +that pretended to be silver; it had a glass heart of turquoise blue hanging +from it, and it was the gift of the maid-of-all-work at the Fitzroy Street +house. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” said Anthea, “this is for you. That is to show we +will not hurt you. And if you take it I shall know that you won’t hurt +us.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl held out her hand. Anthea slid the bangle over it, and the +girl’s face lighted up with the joy of possession. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” she said, looking lovingly at the bangle; “it is +peace between your house and mine.” +</p> + +<p> +She picked up her fish and pitcher and led the way up the narrow path by which +she had come and the others followed. +</p> + +<p> +“This is something like!” said Cyril, trying to be brave. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” said Robert, also assuming a boldness he was far from +feeling, “this really and truly <i>is</i> an adventure! Its being in the +Past makes it quite different from the Phœnix and Carpet happenings.” +</p> + +<p> +The belt of thick-growing acacia trees and shrubs—mostly prickly and +unpleasant-looking—seemed about half a mile across. The path was narrow +and the wood dark. At last, ahead, daylight shone through the boughs and +leaves. +</p> + +<p> +The whole party suddenly came out of the wood’s shadow into the glare of +the sunlight that shone on a great stretch of yellow sand, dotted with heaps of +grey rocks where spiky cactus plants showed gaudy crimson and pink flowers +among their shabby, sand-peppered leaves. Away to the right was something that +looked like a grey-brown hedge, and from beyond it blue smoke went up to the +bluer sky. And over all the sun shone till you could hardly bear your clothes. +</p> + +<p> +“That is where I live,” said the girl pointing. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t go,” whispered Jane into the basket, “unless +you say it’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead ought to have been touched by this proof of confidence. Perhaps, +however, it looked upon it as a proof of doubt, for it merely snarled— +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t go now I’ll never help you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Oh</i>,” whispered Anthea, “dear Jane, don’t! Think +of Father and Mother and all of us getting our heart’s desire. And we can +go back any minute. Come on!” +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” said Cyril, in a low voice, “the Psammead must +know there’s no danger or it wouldn’t go. It’s not so over +and above brave itself. Come on!” +</p> + +<p> +This Jane at last consented to do. +</p> + +<p> +As they got nearer to the browny fence they saw that it was a great hedge about +eight feet high, made of piled-up thorn bushes. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that for?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“To keep out foes and wild beasts,” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think it ought to, too,” said he. “Why, some of the +thorns are as long as my foot.” +</p> + +<p> +There was an opening in the hedge, and they followed the girl through it. A +little way further on was another hedge, not so high, also of dry thorn bushes, +very prickly and spiteful-looking, and within this was a sort of village of +huts. +</p> + +<p> +There were no gardens and no roads. Just huts built of wood and twigs and clay, +and roofed with great palm-leaves, dumped down anywhere. The doors of these +houses were very low, like the doors of dog-kennels. The ground between them +was not paths or streets, but just yellow sand trampled very hard and smooth. +</p> + +<p> +In the middle of the village there was a hedge that enclosed what seemed to be +a piece of ground about as big as their own garden in Camden Town. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner were the children well within the inner thorn hedge than dozens of +men and women and children came crowding round from behind and inside the huts. +</p> + +<p> +The girl stood protectingly in front of the four children, and said— +</p> + +<p> +“They are wonder-children from beyond the desert. They bring marvellous +gifts, and I have said that it is peace between us and them.” +</p> + +<p> +She held out her arm with the Lowther Arcade bangle on it. +</p> + +<p> +The children from London, where nothing now surprises anyone, had never before +seen so many people look so astonished. +</p> + +<p> +They crowded round the children, touching their clothes, their shoes, the +buttons on the boys’ jackets, and the coral of the girls’ +necklaces. +</p> + +<p> +“Do say something,” whispered Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“We come,” said Cyril, with some dim remembrance of a dreadful day +when he had had to wait in an outer office while his father interviewed a +solicitor, and there had been nothing to read but the <i>Daily +Telegraph</i>—“we come from the world where the sun never sets. And +peace with honour is what we want. We are the great Anglo-Saxon or conquering +race. Not that we want to conquer <i>you</i>,” he added hastily. +“We only want to look at your houses and your—well, at all +you’ve got here, and then we shall return to our own place, and tell of +all that we have seen so that your name may be famed.” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril’s speech didn’t keep the crowd from pressing round and +looking as eagerly as ever at the clothing of the children. Anthea had an idea +that these people had never seen woven stuff before, and she saw how wonderful +and strange it must seem to people who had never had any clothes but the skins +of beasts. The sewing, too, of modern clothes seemed to astonish them very +much. They must have been able to sew themselves, by the way, for men who +seemed to be the chiefs wore knickerbockers of goat-skin or deer-skin, fastened +round the waist with twisted strips of hide. And the women wore long skimpy +skirts of animals’ skins. The people were not very tall, their hair was +fair, and men and women both had it short. Their eyes were blue, and that +seemed odd in Egypt. Most of them were tattooed like sailors, only more +roughly. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this? What is this?” they kept asking touching the +children’s clothes curiously. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea hastily took off Jane’s frilly lace collar and handed it to the +woman who seemed most friendly. +</p> + +<p> +“Take this,” she said, “and look at it. And leave us alone. +We want to talk among ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke in the tone of authority which she had always found successful when +she had not time to coax her baby brother to do as he was told. The tone was +just as successful now. The children were left together and the crowd +retreated. It paused a dozen yards away to look at the lace collar and to go on +talking as hard as it could. +</p> + +<p> +The children will never know what those people said, though they knew well +enough that they, the four strangers, were the subject of the talk. They tried +to comfort themselves by remembering the girl’s promise of friendliness, +but of course the thought of the charm was more comfortable than anything else. +They sat down on the sand in the shadow of the hedged-round place in the middle +of the village, and now for the first time they were able to look about them +and to see something more than a crowd of eager, curious faces. +</p> + +<p> +They here noticed that the women wore necklaces made of beads of different +coloured stone, and from these hung pendants of odd, strange shapes, and some +of them had bracelets of ivory and flint. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said Robert, “what a lot we could teach them if we +stayed here!” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect they could teach us something too,” said Cyril. +“Did you notice that flint bracelet the woman had that Anthea gave the +collar to? That must have taken some making. Look here, they’ll get +suspicious if we talk among ourselves, and I do want to know about how they do +things. Let’s get the girl to show us round, and we can be thinking about +how to get the Amulet at the same time. Only mind, we must keep +together.” +</p> + +<p> +Anthea beckoned to the girl, who was standing a little way off looking +wistfully at them, and she came gladly. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell us how you make the bracelets, the stone ones,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“With other stones,” said the girl; “the men make them; we +have men of special skill in such work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you any iron tools?” +</p> + +<p> +“Iron,” said the girl, “I don’t know what you +mean.” It was the first word she had not understood. +</p> + +<p> +“Are all your tools of flint?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said the girl, opening her eyes wide. +</p> + +<p> +I wish I had time to tell you of that talk. The English children wanted to hear +all about this new place, but they also wanted to tell of their own country. It +was like when you come back from your holidays and you want to hear and to tell +everything at the same time. As the talk went on there were more and more words +that the girl could not understand, and the children soon gave up the attempt +to explain to her what their own country was like, when they began to see how +very few of the things they had always thought they could not do without were +really not at all necessary to life. +</p> + +<p> +The girl showed them how the huts were made—indeed, as one was being made +that very day she took them to look at it. The way of building was very +different from ours. The men stuck long pieces of wood into a piece of ground +the size of the hut they wanted to make. These were about eight inches apart; +then they put in another row about eight inches away from the first, and then a +third row still further out. Then all the space between was filled up with +small branches and twigs, and then daubed over with black mud worked with the +feet till it was soft and sticky like putty. +</p> + +<p> +The girl told them how the men went hunting with flint spears and arrows, and +how they made boats with reeds and clay. Then she explained the reed thing in +the river that she had taken the fish out of. It was a fish-trap—just a +ring of reeds set up in the water with only one little opening in it, and in +this opening, just below the water, were stuck reeds slanting the way of the +river’s flow, so that the fish, when they had swum sillily in, sillily +couldn’t get out again. She showed them the clay pots and jars and +platters, some of them ornamented with black and red patterns, and the most +wonderful things made of flint and different sorts of stone, beads, and +ornaments, and tools and weapons of all sorts and kinds. +</p> + +<p> +“It is really wonderful,” said Cyril patronizingly, “when you +consider that it’s all eight thousand years ago—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you,” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>isn’t</i> eight thousand years ago,” whispered Jane. +“It’s <i>now</i>—and that’s just what I don’t +like about it. I say, <i>do</i> let’s get home again before anything more +happens. You can see for yourselves the charm isn’t here.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s in that place in the middle?” asked Anthea, struck by +a sudden thought, and pointing to the fence. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the secret sacred place,” said the girl in a whisper. +“No one knows what is there. There are many walls, and inside the +insidest one <i>It</i> is, but no one knows what <i>It</i> is except the +headsmen.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe <i>you</i> know,” said Cyril, looking at her very hard. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you this if you’ll tell me,” said Anthea +taking off a bead-ring which had already been much admired. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the girl, catching eagerly at the ring. “My +father is one of the heads, and I know a water charm to make him talk in his +sleep. And he has spoken. I will tell you. But if they know I have told you +they will kill me. In the insidest inside there is a stone box, and in it there +is the Amulet. None knows whence it came. It came from very far away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen it?” asked Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +The girl nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it anything like this?” asked Jane, rashly producing the charm. +</p> + +<p> +The girl’s face turned a sickly greenish-white. +</p> + +<p> +“Hide it, hide it,” she whispered. “You must put it back. If +they see it they will kill us all. You for taking it, and me for knowing that +there was such a thing. Oh, woe—woe! why did you ever come here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be frightened,” said Cyril. “They shan’t +know. Jane, don’t you be such a little jack-ape again—that’s +all. You see what will happen if you do. Now, tell me—” He turned +to the girl, but before he had time to speak the question there was a loud +shout, and a man bounded in through the opening in the thorn-hedge. +</p> + +<p> +“Many foes are upon us!” he cried. “Make ready the +defences!” +</p> + +<p> +His breath only served for that, and he lay panting on the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>do</i> let’s go home!” said Jane. “Look +here—I don’t care—I <i>will!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She held up the charm. Fortunately all the strange, fair people were too busy +to notice <i>her</i>. She held up the charm. And nothing happened. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t said the word of power,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +Jane hastily said it—and still nothing happened. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold it up towards the East, you silly!” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Which <i>is</i> the East?” said Jane, dancing about in her agony +of terror. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody knew. So they opened the fish-bag to ask the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +And the bag had only a waterproof sheet in it. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Hide the sacred thing! Hide it! Hide it!” whispered the girl. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril shrugged his shoulders, and tried to look as brave as he knew he ought to +feel. +</p> + +<p> +“Hide it up, Pussy,” he said. “We are in for it now. +We’ve just got to stay and see it out.” +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /> +THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE</h2> + +<p> +Here was a horrible position! Four English children, whose proper date was A.D. +1905, and whose proper address was London, set down in Egypt in the year 6000 +B.C. with no means whatever of getting back into their own time and place. They +could not find the East, and the sun was of no use at the moment, because some +officious person had once explained to Cyril that the sun did not really set in +the West at all—nor rise in the East either, for the matter of that. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead had crept out of the bass-bag when they were not looking and had +basely deserted them. +</p> + +<p> +An enemy was approaching. There would be a fight. People get killed in fights, +and the idea of taking part in a fight was one that did not appeal to the +children. +</p> + +<p> +The man who had brought the news of the enemy still lay panting on the sand. +His tongue was hanging out, long and red, like a dog’s. The people of the +village were hurriedly filling the gaps in the fence with thorn-bushes from the +heap that seemed to have been piled there ready for just such a need. They +lifted the cluster-thorns with long poles—much as men at home, nowadays, +lift hay with a fork. +</p> + +<p> +Jane bit her lip and tried to decide not to cry. +</p> + +<p> +Robert felt in his pocket for a toy pistol and loaded it with a pink paper cap. +It was his only weapon. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril tightened his belt two holes. +</p> + +<p> +And Anthea absently took the drooping red roses from the buttonholes of the +others, bit the ends of the stalks, and set them in a pot of water that stood +in the shadow by a hut door. She was always rather silly about flowers. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here!” she said. “I think perhaps the Psammead is +really arranging something for us. I don’t believe it would go away and +leave us all alone in the Past. I’m certain it wouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane succeeded in deciding not to cry—at any rate yet. +</p> + +<p> +“But what can we do?” Robert asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing,” Cyril answered promptly, “except keep our eyes and +ears open. Look! That runner chap’s getting his wind. Let’s go and +hear what he’s got to say.” +</p> + +<p> +The runner had risen to his knees and was sitting back on his heels. Now he +stood up and spoke. He began by some respectful remarks addressed to the heads +of the village. His speech got more interesting when he said— +</p> + +<p> +“I went out in my raft to snare ibises, and I had gone up the stream an +hour’s journey. Then I set my snares and waited. And I heard the sound of +many wings, and looking up, saw many herons circling in the air. And I saw that +they were afraid; so I took thought. A beast may scare one heron, coming upon +it suddenly, but no beast will scare a whole flock of herons. And still they +flew and circled, and would not light. So then I knew that what scared the +herons must be men, and men who knew not our ways of going softly so as to take +the birds and beasts unawares. By this I knew they were not of our race or of +our place. So, leaving my raft, I crept along the river bank, and at last came +upon the strangers. They are many as the sands of the desert, and their +spear-heads shine red like the sun. They are a terrible people, and their march +is towards us. Having seen this, I ran, and did not stay till I was before +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“These are <i>your</i> folk,” said the headman, turning suddenly +and angrily on Cyril, “you came as spies for them.” +</p> + +<p> +“We did <i>not</i>,” said Cyril indignantly. “We +wouldn’t be spies for anything. I’m certain these people +aren’t a bit like us. Are they now?” he asked the runner. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” was the answer. “These men’s faces were darkened, +and their hair black as night. Yet these strange children, maybe, are their +gods, who have come before to make ready the way for them.” +</p> + +<p> +A murmur ran through the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +“No, <i>no</i>,” said Cyril again. “We are on your side. We +will help you to guard your sacred things.” +</p> + +<p> +The headman seemed impressed by the fact that Cyril knew that there <i>were</i> +sacred things to be guarded. He stood a moment gazing at the children. Then he +said— +</p> + +<p> +“It is well. And now let all make offering, that we may be strong in +battle.” +</p> + +<p> +The crowd dispersed, and nine men, wearing antelope-skins, grouped themselves +in front of the opening in the hedge in the middle of the village. And +presently, one by one, the men brought all sorts of things—hippopotamus +flesh, ostrich-feathers, the fruit of the date palms, red chalk, green chalk, +fish from the river, and ibex from the mountains; and the headman received +these gifts. There was another hedge inside the first, about a yard from it, so +that there was a lane inside between the hedges. And every now and then one of +the headmen would disappear along this lane with full hands and come back with +hands empty. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re making offerings to their Amulet,” said Anthea. +“We’d better give something too.” +</p> + +<p> +The pockets of the party, hastily explored, yielded a piece of pink tape, a bit +of sealing-wax, and part of the Waterbury watch that Robert had not been able +to help taking to pieces at Christmas and had never had time to rearrange. Most +boys have a watch in this condition. +</p> + +<p> +They presented their offerings, and Anthea added the red roses. +</p> + +<p> +The headman who took the things looked at them with awe, especially at the red +roses and the Waterbury-watch fragment. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a day of very wondrous happenings,” he said. “I have +no more room in me to be astonished. Our maiden said there was peace between +you and us. But for this coming of a foe we should have made sure.” +</p> + +<p> +The children shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +“Now speak. Are you upon our side?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Yes</i>. Don’t I keep telling you we are?” Robert said. +“Look here. I will give you a sign. You see this.” He held out the +toy pistol. “I shall speak to it, and if it answers me you will know that +I and the others are come to guard your sacred thing—that we’ve +just made the offerings to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will that god whose image you hold in your hand speak to you alone, or +shall I also hear it?” asked the man cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be surprised when you <i>do</i> hear it,” said +Robert. “Now, then.” He looked at the pistol and said— +</p> + +<p> +“If we are to guard the sacred treasure within”—he pointed to +the hedged-in space—“speak with thy loud voice, and we shall +obey.” +</p> + +<p> +He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, for it was a +two-shilling pistol, and the caps were excellent. +</p> + +<p> +Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on the sand. +</p> + +<p> +The headman who had accepted the test rose first. +</p> + +<p> +“The voice has spoken,” he said. “Lead them into the +ante-room of the sacred thing.” +</p> + +<p> +So now the four children were led in through the opening of the hedge and round +the lane till they came to an opening in the inner hedge, and they went through +an opening in that, and so passed into another lane. +</p> + +<p> +The thing was built something like this, and all the hedges were of brushwood +and thorns: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig03.jpg" width="450" height="398" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +“It’s like the maze at Hampton Court,” whispered Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the middle of the +maze was round-roofed, and a curtain of skins hung over the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Here you may wait,” said their guide, “but do not dare to +pass the curtain.” He himself passed it and disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“But look here,” whispered Cyril, “some of us ought to be +outside in case the Psammead turns up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s get separated from each other, whatever we +do,” said Anthea. “It’s quite bad enough to be separated from +the Psammead. We can’t do anything while that man is in there. +Let’s all go out into the village again. We can come back later now we +know the way in. That man’ll have to fight like the rest, most likely, if +it comes to fighting. If we find the Psammead we’ll go straight home. It +must be getting late, and I don’t much like this mazy place.” +</p> + +<p> +They went out and told the headman that they would protect the treasure when +the fighting began. And now they looked about them and were able to see exactly +how a first-class worker in flint flakes and notches an arrow-head or the edge +of an axe—an advantage which no other person now alive has ever enjoyed. +The boys found the weapons most interesting. The arrow-heads were not on arrows +such as you shoot from a bow, but on javelins, for throwing from the hand. The +chief weapon was a stone fastened to a rather short stick something like the +things gentlemen used to carry about and call life-preservers in the days of +the garrotters. Then there were long things like spears or lances, with flint +knives—horribly sharp—and flint battle-axes. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone in the village was so busy that the place was like an ant-heap when +you have walked into it by accident. The women were busy and even the children. +</p> + +<p> +Quite suddenly all the air seemed to glow and grow red—it was like the +sudden opening of a furnace door, such as you may see at Woolwich Arsenal if +you ever have the luck to be taken there—and then almost as suddenly it +was as though the furnace doors had been shut. For the sun had set, and it was +night. +</p> + +<p> +The sun had that abrupt way of setting in Egypt eight thousand years ago, and I +believe it has never been able to break itself of the habit, and sets in +exactly the same manner to the present day. The girl brought the skins of wild +deer and led the children to a heap of dry sedge. +</p> + +<p> +“My father says they will not attack yet. Sleep!” she said, and it +really seemed a good idea. You may think that in the midst of all these dangers +the children would not have been able to sleep—but somehow, though they +were rather frightened now and then, the feeling was growing in them—deep +down and almost hidden away, but still growing—that the Psammead was to +be trusted, and that they were really and truly safe. This did not prevent +their being quite as much frightened as they could bear to be without being +perfectly miserable. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose we’d better go to sleep,” said Robert. “I +don’t know what on earth poor old Nurse will do with us out all night; +set the police on our tracks, I expect. I only wish they could find us! A dozen +policemen would be rather welcome just now. But it’s no use getting into +a stew over it,” he added soothingly. “Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +And they all fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +They were awakened by long, loud, terrible sounds that seemed to come from +everywhere at once—horrible threatening shouts and shrieks and howls that +sounded, as Cyril said later, like the voices of men thirsting for their +enemies’ blood. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the voice of the strange men,” said the girl, coming to them +trembling through the dark. “They have attacked the walls, and the thorns +have driven them back. My father says they will not try again till daylight. +But they are shouting to frighten us. As though we were savages! Dwellers in +the swamps!” she cried indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +All night the terrible noise went on, but when the sun rose, as abruptly as he +had set, the sound suddenly ceased. +</p> + +<p> +The children had hardly time to be glad of this before a shower of javelins +came hurtling over the great thorn-hedge, and everyone sheltered behind the +huts. But next moment another shower of weapons came from the opposite side, +and the crowd rushed to other shelter. Cyril pulled out a javelin that had +stuck in the roof of the hut beside him. Its head was of brightly burnished +copper. +</p> + +<p> +Then the sound of shouting arose again and the crackle of dried thorns. The +enemy was breaking down the hedge. All the villagers swarmed to the point +whence the crackling and the shouting came; they hurled stones over the hedges, +and short arrows with flint heads. The children had never before seen men with +the fighting light in their eyes. It was very strange and terrible, and gave +you a queer thick feeling in your throat; it was quite different from the +pictures of fights in the illustrated papers at home. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed that the shower of stones had driven back the besiegers. The besieged +drew breath, but at that moment the shouting and the crackling arose on the +opposite side of the village and the crowd hastened to defend that point, and +so the fight swayed to and fro across the village, for the besieged had not the +sense to divide their forces as their enemies had done. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril noticed that every now and then certain of the fighting-men would enter +the maze, and come out with brighter faces, a braver aspect, and a more upright +carriage. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe they go and touch the Amulet,” he said. “You know +the Psammead said it could make people brave.” +</p> + +<p> +They crept through the maze, and watching they saw that Cyril was right. A +headman was standing in front of the skin curtain, and as the warriors came +before him he murmured a word they could not hear, and touched their foreheads +with something that they could not see. And this something he held in his +hands. And through his fingers they saw the gleam of a red stone that they +knew. +</p> + +<p> +The fight raged across the thorn-hedge outside. Suddenly there was a loud and +bitter cry. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re in! They’re in! The hedge is down!” +</p> + +<p> +The headman disappeared behind the deer-skin curtain. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s gone to hide it,” said Anthea. “Oh, Psammead +dear, how could you leave us!” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly there was a shriek from inside the hut, and the headman staggered out +white with fear and fled out through the maze. The children were as white as +he. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! What is it? What is it?” moaned Anthea. “Oh, Psammead, +how could you! How could you!” +</p> + +<p> +And the sound of the fight sank breathlessly, and swelled fiercely all around. +It was like the rising and falling of the waves of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea shuddered and said again, “Oh, Psammead, Psammead!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said a brisk voice, and the curtain of skins was lifted at +one corner by a furry hand, and out peeped the bat’s ears and +snail’s eyes of the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea caught it in her arms and a sigh of desperate relief was breathed by +each of the four. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! which <i>is</i> the East!” Anthea said, and she spoke +hurriedly, for the noise of wild fighting drew nearer and nearer. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t choke me,” said the Psammead, “come +inside.” +</p> + +<p> +The inside of the hut was pitch dark. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a match,” said Cyril, and struck it. The floor of +the hut was of soft, loose sand. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been asleep here,” said the Psammead; “most +comfortable it’s been, the best sand I’ve had for a month. +It’s all right. Everything’s all right. I knew your only chance +would be while the fight was going on. That man won’t come back. I bit +him, and he thinks I’m an Evil Spirit. Now you’ve only got to take +the thing and go.” +</p> + +<p> +The hut was hung with skins. Heaped in the middle were the offerings that had +been given the night before, Anthea’s roses fading on the top of the +heap. At one side of the hut stood a large square stone block, and on it an +oblong box of earthenware with strange figures of men and beasts on it. +</p> + +<p> +“Is the thing in there?” asked Cyril, as the Psammead pointed a +skinny finger at it. +</p> + +<p> +“You must judge of that,” said the Psammead. “The man was +just going to bury the box in the sand when I jumped out at him and bit +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Light another match, Robert,” said Anthea. “Now, then quick! +which is the East?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, where the sun rises, of course!” +</p> + +<p> +“But someone told us—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! they’ll tell you anything!” said the Psammead +impatiently, getting into its bass-bag and wrapping itself in its waterproof +sheet. +</p> + +<p> +“But we can’t see the sun in here, and it isn’t rising +anyhow,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“How you do waste time!” the Psammead said. “Why, the +East’s where the shrine is, of course. <i>There!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +It pointed to the great stone. +</p> + +<p> +And still the shouting and the clash of stone on metal sounded nearer and +nearer. The children could hear that the headmen had surrounded the hut to +protect their treasure as long as might be from the enemy. But none dare to +come in after the Psammead’s sudden fierce biting of the headman. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Jane,” said Cyril, very quickly. “I’ll take the +Amulet, you stand ready to hold up the charm, and be sure you don’t let +it go as you come through.” +</p> + +<p> +He made a step forward, but at that instant a great crackling overhead ended in +a blaze of sunlight. The roof had been broken in at one side, and great slabs +of it were being lifted off by two spears. As the children trembled and winked +in the new light, large dark hands tore down the wall, and a dark face, with a +blobby fat nose, looked over the gap. Even at that awful moment Anthea had time +to think that it was very like the face of Mr Jacob Absalom, who had sold them +the charm in the shop near Charing Cross. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is their Amulet,” cried a harsh, strange voice; “it is +this that makes them strong to fight and brave to die. And what else have we +here—gods or demons?” +</p> + +<p> +He glared fiercely at the children, and the whites of his eyes were very white +indeed. He had a wet, red copper knife in his teeth. There was not a moment to +lose. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane, <i>Jane</i>, QUICK!” cried everyone passionately. +</p> + +<p> +Jane with trembling hands held up the charm towards the East, and Cyril spoke +the word of power. The Amulet grew to a great arch. Out beyond it was the +glaring Egyptian sky, the broken wall, the cruel, dark, big-nosed face with the +red, wet knife in its gleaming teeth. Within the arch was the dull, faint, +greeny-brown of London grass and trees. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold tight, Jane!” Cyril cried, and he dashed through the arch, +dragging Anthea and the Psammead after him. Robert followed, clutching Jane. +And in the ears of each, as they passed through the arch of the charm, the +sound and fury of battle died out suddenly and utterly, and they heard only the +low, dull, discontented hum of vast London, and the peeking and patting of the +sparrows on the gravel and the voices of the ragged baby children playing +Ring-o’-Roses on the yellow trampled grass. And the charm was a little +charm again in Jane’s hand, and there was the basket with their dinner +and the bathbuns lying just where they had left it. +</p> + +<p> +“My hat!” said Cyril, drawing a long breath; “that was +something like an adventure.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was rather like one, certainly,” said the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +They all lay still, breathing in the safe, quiet air of Regent’s Park. +</p> + +<p> +“We’d better go home at once,” said Anthea presently. +“Old Nurse will be most frightfully anxious. The sun looks about the same +as it did when we started yesterday. We’ve been away twenty-four +hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“The buns are quite soft still,” said Cyril, feeling one; “I +suppose the dew kept them fresh.” +</p> + +<p> +They were not hungry, curiously enough. +</p> + +<p> +They picked up the dinner-basket and the Psammead-basket, and went straight +home. +</p> + +<p> +Old Nurse met them with amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if ever I did!” she said. “What’s gone wrong? +You’ve soon tired of your picnic.” +</p> + +<p> +The children took this to be bitter irony, which means saying the exact +opposite of what you mean in order to make yourself disagreeable; as when you +happen to have a dirty face, and someone says, “How nice and clean you +look!” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re very sorry,” began Anthea, but old Nurse said— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, bless me, child, I don’t care! Please yourselves and +you’ll please me. Come in and get your dinners comf’table. +I’ve got a potato on a-boiling.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone to attend to the potatoes the children looked at each other. +Could it be that old Nurse had so changed that she no longer cared that they +should have been away from home for twenty-four hours—all night in +fact—without any explanation whatever? +</p> + +<p> +But the Psammead put its head out of its basket and said— +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter? Don’t you understand? You come back +through the charm-arch at the same time as you go through it. This isn’t +tomorrow!” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it still yesterday?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s today. The same as it’s always been. It +wouldn’t do to go mixing up the present and the Past, and cutting bits +out of one to fit into the other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then all that adventure took no time at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can call it that if you like,” said the Psammead. “It +took none of the modern time, anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +That evening Anthea carried up a steak for the learned gentleman’s +dinner. She persuaded Beatrice, the maid-of-all-work, who had given her the +bangle with the blue stone, to let her do it. And she stayed and talked to him, +by special invitation, while he ate the dinner. +</p> + +<p> +She told him the whole adventure, beginning with— +</p> + +<p> +“This afternoon we found ourselves on the bank of the River Nile,” +and ending up with, “And then we remembered how to get back, and there we +were in Regent’s Park, and it hadn’t taken any time at all.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not tell anything about the charm or the Psammead, because that was +forbidden, but the story was quite wonderful enough even as it was to entrance +the learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a most unusual little girl,” he said. “Who tells you +all these things?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one,” said Anthea, “they just happen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Make-believe,” he said slowly, as one who recalls and pronounces a +long-forgotten word. +</p> + +<p> +He sat long after she had left him. At last he roused himself with a start. +</p> + +<p> +“I really must take a holiday,” he said; “my nerves must be +all out of order. I actually have a perfectly distinct impression that the +little girl from the rooms below came in and gave me a coherent and graphic +picture of life as I conceive it to have been in pre-dynastic Egypt. Strange +what tricks the mind will play! I shall have to be more careful.” +</p> + +<p> +He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a mile walk before +he went back to his work. +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /> +THE WAY TO BABYLON</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“How many miles to Babylon?<br /> + Three score and ten!<br /> +Can I get there by candle light?<br /> + Yes, and back again!” +</p> + +<p> +Jane was singing to her doll, rocking it to and fro in the house which she had +made for herself and it. The roof of the house was the dining-table, and the +walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hanging all round, and kept in their +places by books laid on their top ends at the table edge. +</p> + +<p> +The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. You know how +it is done—with the largest and best tea-tray and the surface of the +stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days when the stair rods are being +cleaned, and the carpet is only held by the nails at the top. Of course, it is +one of the five or six thoroughly tip-top games that grown-up people are so +unjust to—and old Nurse, though a brick in many respects, was quite +enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot down on the tobogganing long +before any of the performers had had half enough of it. The tea-tray was taken +away, and the baffled party entered the sitting-room, in exactly the mood not +to be pleased if they could help it. +</p> + +<p> +So Cyril said, “What a beastly mess!” +</p> + +<p> +And Robert added, “Do shut up, Jane!” +</p> + +<p> +Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try another song. +“I’m sick to death of that,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +It was a wet day, so none of the plans for seeing all the sights of London that +can be seen for nothing could be carried out. Everyone had been thinking all +the morning about the wonderful adventures of the day before, when Jane had +held up the charm and it had turned into an arch, through which they had walked +straight out of the present time and the Regent’s Park into the land of +Egypt eight thousand years ago. The memory of yesterday’s happenings was +still extremely fresh and frightening, so that everyone hoped that no one would +suggest another excursion into the past, for it seemed to all that +yesterday’s adventures were quite enough to last for at least a week. Yet +each felt a little anxious that the others should not think it was afraid, and +presently Cyril, who really was not a coward, began to see that it would not be +at all nice if he should have to think himself one. So he said— +</p> + +<p> +“I say—about that charm—Jane—come out. We ought to talk +about it, anyhow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if that’s all,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +Jane obediently wriggled to the front of her house and sat there. She felt for +the charm, to make sure that it was still round her neck. +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>isn’t</i> all,” said Cyril, saying much more than he +meant because he thought Robert’s tone had been rude—as indeed it +had. “We ought to go and look for that Amulet. What’s the good of +having a first-class charm and keeping it idle, just eating its head off in the +stable.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I’m</i> game for anything, of course,” said Robert; but +he added, with a fine air of chivalry, “only I don’t think the +girls are keen today somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; I am,” said Anthea hurriedly. “If you think +I’m afraid, I’m not.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am though,” said Jane heavily; “I didn’t like it, +and I won’t go there again—not for anything I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shouldn’t go <i>there</i> again, silly,” said Cyril; +“it would be some other place.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay; a place with lions and tigers in it as likely as not.” +</p> + +<p> +Seeing Jane so frightened, made the others feel quite brave. They said they +were certain they ought to go. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s so ungrateful to the Psammead not to,” Anthea added, a +little primly. +</p> + +<p> +Jane stood up. She was desperate. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t!” she cried; “I won’t, I won’t, I +won’t! If you make me I’ll scream and I’ll scream, and +I’ll tell old Nurse, and I’ll get her to burn the charm in the +kitchen fire. So now, then!” +</p> + +<p> +You can imagine how furious everyone was with Jane for feeling what each of +them had felt all the morning. In each breast the same thought arose, “No +one can say it’s <i>our</i> fault.” And they at once began to show +Jane how angry they all felt that all the fault was hers. This made them feel +quite brave. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Tell-tale tit, its tongue shall be split,<br /> +And all the dogs in our town shall have a little bit,” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +sang Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s always the way if you have girls in anything.” Cyril +spoke in a cold displeasure that was worse than Robert’s cruel quotation, +and even Anthea said, “Well, <i>I’m</i> not afraid if I <i>am</i> a +girl,” which of course, was the most cutting thing of all. +</p> + +<p> +Jane picked up her doll and faced the others with what is sometimes called the +courage of despair. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” she said; “I <i>won’t</i>, so +there! It’s just silly going to places when you don’t want to, and +when you don’t know what they’re going to be like! You can laugh at +me as much as you like. You’re beasts—and I hate you all!” +</p> + +<p> +With these awful words she went out and banged the door. +</p> + +<p> +Then the others would not look at each other, and they did not feel so brave as +they had done. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril took up a book, but it was not interesting to read. Robert kicked a +chair-leg absently. His feet were always eloquent in moments of emotion. Anthea +stood pleating the end of the tablecloth into folds—she seemed earnestly +anxious to get all the pleats the same size. The sound of Jane’s sobs had +died away. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Anthea said, “Oh! let it be ‘pax’—poor little +Pussy—you know she’s the youngest.” +</p> + +<p> +“She called us beasts,” said Robert, kicking the chair suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Cyril, who was subject to passing fits of justice, +“we began, you know. At least you did.” Cyril’s justice was +always uncompromising. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going to say I’m sorry if you mean that,” said +Robert, and the chair-leg cracked to the kick he gave as he said it. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do let’s,” said Anthea, “we’re three to one, +and Mother does so hate it if we row. Come on. I’ll say I’m sorry +first, though I didn’t say anything, hardly.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, let’s get it over,” said Cyril, opening the +door.“Hi—you—Pussy!” +</p> + +<p> +Far away up the stairs a voice could be heard singing brokenly, but still +defiantly— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“How many miles (sniff) to Babylon?<br /> + Three score and ten! (sniff)<br /> +Can I get there by candle light?<br /> + Yes (sniff), and back again!” +</p> + +<p> +It was trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would not give +herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, taking three at a +time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the top step of all, +thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying to sing. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Pussy, let it be pax! We’re sorry if you are—” +</p> + +<p> +It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being the youngest was +entitled to this ceremonial. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea added a special apology of her own. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry if I was a pig, Pussy dear,” she +said—“especially because in my really and truly inside mind +I’ve been feeling a little as if I’d rather not go into the Past +again either. But then, do think. If we don’t go we shan’t get the +Amulet, and oh, Pussy, think if we could only get Father and Mother and The +Lamb safe back! We <i>must</i> go, but we’ll wait a day or two if you +like and then perhaps you’ll feel braver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Raw meat makes you brave, however cowardly you are,” said Robert, +to show that there was now no ill-feeling, “and +cranberries—that’s what Tartars eat, and they’re so brave +it’s simply awful. I suppose cranberries are only for Christmas time, but +I’ll ask old Nurse to let you have your chop very raw if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I could be brave without that,” said Jane hastily; she +hated underdone meat. “I’ll try.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the door of the learned gentleman’s room opened, and he +looked out. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” he said, in that gentle, polite weary voice of his, +“but was I mistaken in thinking that I caught a familiar word just now? +Were you not singing some old ballad of Babylon?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Robert, “at least Jane was singing ‘How many +miles,’ but I shouldn’t have thought you could have heard the words +for—” +</p> + +<p> +He would have said, “for the sniffing,” but Anthea pinched him just +in time. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not hear <i>all</i> the words,” said the learned gentleman. +“I wonder would you recite them to me?” +</p> + +<p> +So they all said together— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“How many miles to Babylon?<br /> + Three score and ten!<br /> +Can I get there by candle light?<br /> + Yes, and back again!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish one could,” the learned gentleman said with a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Babylon has fallen,” he answered with a sigh. “You know it +was once a great and beautiful city, and the centre of learning and Art, and +now it is only ruins, and so covered up with earth that people are not even +agreed as to where it once stood.” +</p> + +<p> +He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look in them, as +though he could see through the staircase window the splendour and glory of +ancient Babylon. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” Cyril remarked abruptly. “You know that charm we +showed you, and you told us how to say the name that’s on it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, do you think that charm was ever in Babylon?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s quite possible,” the learned gentleman replied. +“Such charms have been found in very early Egyptian tombs, yet their +origin has not been accurately determined as Egyptian. They may have been +brought from Asia. Or, supposing the charm to have been fashioned in Egypt, it +might very well have been carried to Babylon by some friendly embassy, or +brought back by the Babylonish army from some Egyptian campaign as part of the +spoils of war. The inscription may be much later than the charm. Oh yes! it is +a pleasant fancy, that that splendid specimen of yours was once used amid +Babylonish surroundings.” +</p> + +<p> +The others looked at each other, but it was Jane who spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and throwing +things about?” For she had read the thoughts of the others by the +unerring light of her own fears. +</p> + +<p> +“The Babylonians were certainly more gentle than the Assyrians,” +said the learned gentleman. “And they were not savages by any means. A +very high level of culture,” he looked doubtfully at his audience and +went on, “I mean that they made beautiful statues and jewellery, and +built splendid palaces. And they were very learned—they had glorious +libraries and high towers for the purpose of astrological and astronomical +observation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Er?” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean for—star-gazing and fortune-telling,” said the +learned gentleman, “and there were temples and beautiful hanging +gardens—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go to Babylon if you like,” said Jane abruptly, and the +others hastened to say “Done!” before she should have time to +change her mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, “one +can go so far in dreams, when one is young.” He sighed again, and then +adding with a laboured briskness, “I hope you’ll have +a—a—jolly game,” he went into his room and shut the door. +</p> + +<p> +“He said ‘jolly’ as if it was a foreign language,” said +Cyril. “Come on, let’s get the Psammead and go now. I think Babylon +seems a most frightfully jolly place to go to.” +</p> + +<p> +So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag with the waterproof sheet, +in case of inclement weather in Babylon. It was very cross, but it said it +would as soon go to Babylon as anywhere else. “The sand is good +thereabouts,” it added. +</p> + +<p> +Then Jane held up the charm, and Cyril said— +</p> + +<p> +“We want to go to Babylon to look for the part of you that was lost. Will +you please let us go there through you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Please put us down just outside,” said Jane hastily; “and +then if we don’t like it we needn’t go inside.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be all day,” said the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +So Anthea hastily uttered the word of power, without which the charm could do +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Ur—Hekau—Setcheh!” she said softly, and as she spoke +the charm grew into an arch so tall that the top of it was close against the +bedroom ceiling. Outside the arch was the bedroom painted chest-of-drawers and +the Kidderminster carpet, and the washhand-stand with the riveted +willow-pattern jug, and the faded curtains, and the dull light of indoors on a +wet day. Through the arch showed the gleam of soft green leaves and white +blossoms. They stepped forward quite happily. Even Jane felt that this did not +look like lions, and her hand hardly trembled at all as she held the charm for +the others to go through, and last, slipped through herself, and hung the +charm, now grown small again, round her neck. +</p> + +<p> +The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafed fruit-tree, +in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, all white-flowered and +green-foliaged. Among the long green grass under their feet grew crocuses and +lilies, and strange blue flowers. In the branches overhead thrushes and +blackbirds were singing, and the coo of a pigeon came softly to them in the +green quietness of the orchard. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” cried Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s like home exactly—I mean England—only +everything’s bluer, and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are +bigger.” +</p> + +<p> +The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane admitted that +it was all very pretty. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m certain there’s nothing to be frightened of here,” +said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Jane. “I suppose the fruit-trees +go on just the same even when people are killing each other. I didn’t +half like what the learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens. I suppose +they have gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn’t +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it isn’t,” said Cyril. “The hanging gardens +are just gardens hung up—<i>I</i> think on chains between houses, +don’t you know, like trays. Come on; let’s get somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could see was nothing +but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end of their orchard was another +one, only separated from theirs by a little stream of clear water. They jumped +this, and went on. Cyril, who was fond of gardening—which meant that he +liked to watch the gardener at work—was able to command the respect of +the others by telling them the names of a good many trees. There were nut-trees +and almond-trees, and apricots, and fig-trees with their big five-fingered +leaves. And every now and then the children had to cross another brook. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like between the squares in <i>Through the +Looking-glass</i>,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the other +orchards. It had a low building in one corner. +</p> + +<p> +“These are vines,” said Cyril superiorly, “and I know this is +a vineyard. I shouldn’t wonder if there was a wine-press inside that +place over there.” +</p> + +<p> +At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, very rough, and +not at all like the roads you are used to. It had cypress trees and acacia +trees along it, and a sort of hedge of tamarisks, like those you see on the +road between Nice and Cannes, or near Littlehampton, if you’ve only been +as far as that. +</p> + +<p> +And now in front of them they could see a great mass of buildings. There were +scattered houses of wood and stone here and there among green orchards, and +beyond these a great wall that shone red in the early morning sun. The wall was +enormously high—more than half the height of St Paul’s—and in +the wall were set enormous gates that shone like gold as the rising sun beat on +them. Each gate had a solid square tower on each side of it that stood out from +the wall and rose above it. Beyond the wall were more towers and houses, +gleaming with gold and bright colours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue +swirl of a great river. And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, +that the river flowed out from the town under a great arch in the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Those feathery things along by the water are palms,” said Cyril +instructively. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes; you know everything,” Robert replied. “What’s +all that grey-green stuff you see away over there, where it’s all flat +and sandy?” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Cyril loftily, “<i>I</i> don’t want +to tell you anything. I only thought you’d like to know a palm-tree when +you saw it again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look!” cried Anthea; “they’re opening the +gates.” +</p> + +<p> +And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and instantly a +little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and along the road towards +them. +</p> + +<p> +The children, with one accord, crouched behind the tamarisk hedge. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like the sound of those gates,” said Jane. +“Fancy being inside when they shut. You’d never get out.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got an arch of your own to go out by,” the Psammead +put its head out of the basket to remind her. “Don’t behave so like +a girl. If I were you I should just march right into the town and ask to see +the king.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something at once simple and grand about this idea, and it pleased +everyone. +</p> + +<p> +So when the work-people had passed (they <i>were</i> work-people, the children +felt sure, because they were dressed so plainly—just one long blue shirt +thing—of blue or yellow) the four children marched boldly up to the +brazen gate between the towers. The arch above the gate was quite a tunnel, the +walls were so thick. +</p> + +<p> +“Courage,” said Cyril. “Step out. It’s no use trying to +sneak past. Be bold!” +</p> + +<p> +Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into “The British +Grenadiers”, and to its quick-step they approached the gates of Babylon. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Some talk of Alexander,<br /> + And some of Hercules,<br /> +Of Hector and Lysander,<br /> + And such great names as these.<br /> +But of all the gallant heroes...” +</p> + +<p> +This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in bright armour +suddenly barred their way with crossed spears. +</p> + +<p> +“Who goes there?” they said. +</p> + +<p> +(I think I must have explained to you before how it was that the children were +always able to understand the language of any place they might happen to be in, +and to be themselves understood. If not, I have no time to explain it now.) +</p> + +<p> +“We come from very far,” said Cyril mechanically. “From the +Empire where the sun never sets, and we want to see your King.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it’s quite convenient,” amended Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“The King (may he live for ever!),” said the gatekeeper, “is +gone to fetch home his fourteenth wife. Where on earth have you come from not +to know that?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Queen then,” said Anthea hurriedly, and not taking any notice +of the question as to where they had come from. +</p> + +<p> +“The Queen,” said the gatekeeper, “(may she live for ever!) +gives audience today three hours after sunrising.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?” asked +Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared less interested +in them than they could have thought possible. But the man who had crossed +spears with him to bar the children’s way was more human. +</p> + +<p> +“Let them go in and look about them,” he said. “I’ll +wager my best sword they’ve never seen anything to come near our +little—village.” +</p> + +<p> +He said it in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean the +“herring pond”. +</p> + +<p> +The gatekeeper hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re only children, after all,” said the other, who had +children of his own. “Let me off for a few minutes, Captain, and +I’ll take them to my place and see if my good woman can’t fit them +up in something a little less outlandish than their present rig. Then they can +have a look round without being mobbed. May I go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, if you like,” said the Captain, “but don’t be +all day.” +</p> + +<p> +The man led them through the dark arch into the town. And it was very different +from London. For one thing, everything in London seems to be patched up out of +odds and ends, but these houses seemed to have been built by people who liked +the same sort of things. Not that they were all alike, for though all were +squarish, they were of different sizes, and decorated in all sorts of different +ways, some with paintings in bright colours, some with black and silver +designs. There were terraces, and gardens, and balconies, and open spaces with +trees. Their guide took them to a little house in a back street, where a +kind-faced woman sat spinning at the door of a very dark room. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” he said, “just lend these children a mantle each, so +that they can go about and see the place till the Queen’s audience +begins. You leave that wool for a bit, and show them round if you like. I must +be off now.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman did as she was told, and the four children, wrapped in fringed +mantles, went with her all about the town, and oh! how I wish I had time to +tell you all that they saw. It was all so wonderfully different from anything +you have ever seen. For one thing, all the houses were dazzlingly bright, and +many of them covered with pictures. Some had great creatures carved in stone at +each side of the door. Then the people—there were no black frock-coats +and tall hats; no dingy coats and skirts of good, useful, ugly stuffs warranted +to wear. Everyone’s clothes were bright and beautiful with blue and +scarlet and green and gold. +</p> + +<p> +The market was brighter than you would think anything could be. There were +stalls for everything you could possibly want—and for a great many things +that if you wanted here and now, want would be your master. There were +pineapples and peaches in heaps—and stalls of crockery and glass things, +beautiful shapes and glorious colours, there were stalls for necklaces, and +clasps, and bracelets, and brooches, for woven stuffs, and furs, and +embroidered linen. The children had never seen half so many beautiful things +together, even at Liberty’s. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed no time at all before the woman said— +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nearly time now. We ought to be getting on towards the +palace. It’s as well to be early.” +</p> + +<p> +So they went to the palace, and when they got there it was more splendid than +anything they had seen yet. +</p> + +<p> +For it was glowing with colours, and with gold and silver and black and +white—like some magnificent embroidery. Flight after flight of broad +marble steps led up to it, and at the edges of the stairs stood great images, +twenty times as big as a man—images of men with wings like chain armour, +and hawks’ heads, and winged men with the heads of dogs. And there were +the statues of great kings. +</p> + +<p> +Between the flights of steps were terraces where fountains played, and the +Queen’s Guard in white and scarlet, and armour that shone like gold, +stood by twos lining the way up the stairs; and a great body of them was massed +by the vast door of the palace itself, where it stood glittering like an +impossibly radiant peacock in the noon-day sun. +</p> + +<p> +All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of the Queen. +Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy flounces, poor folks in plain +and simple clothes, dandies with beards oiled and curled. +</p> + +<p> +And Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane, went with the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +At the gate of the palace the Psammead put one eye cautiously out of the basket +and whispered— +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t be bothered with queens. I’ll go home with this +lady. I’m sure she’ll get me some sand if you ask her to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! don’t leave us,” said Jane. The woman was giving some +last instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a little muff,” said the Psammead quite fiercely. +“It’s not a bit of good your having a charm. You never use it. If +you want me you’ve only got to say the name of power and ask the charm to +bring me to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather go with you,” said Jane. And it was the most +surprising thing she had ever said in her life. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone opened its mouth without thinking of manners, and Anthea, who was +peeping into the Psammead’s basket, saw that its mouth opened wider than +anybody’s. +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t gawp like that,” Jane went on. “I’m +not going to be bothered with queens any more than IT is. And I know, wherever +it is, it’ll take jolly good care that it’s safe.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s right there,” said everyone, for they had observed +that the Psammead had a way of knowing which side its bread was buttered. +</p> + +<p> +She turned to the woman and said, “You’ll take me home with you, +won’t you? And let me play with your little girls till the others have +done with the Queen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely I will, little heart!” said the woman. +</p> + +<p> +And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, who took the +woman’s hand, and trotted contentedly away with the Psammead’s bag +under the other arm. +</p> + +<p> +The others stood looking after her till she, the woman, and the basket were +lost in the many-coloured crowd. Then Anthea turned once more to the +palace’s magnificent doorway and said— +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s ask the porter to take care of our Babylonian +overcoats.” +</p> + +<p> +So they took off the garments that the woman had lent them and stood amid the +jostling petitioners of the Queen in their own English frocks and coats and +hats and boots. +</p> + +<p> +“We want to see the Queen,” said Cyril; “we come from the far +Empire where the sun never sets!” +</p> + +<p> +A murmur of surprise and a thrill of excitement ran through the crowd. The +door-porter spoke to a black man, he spoke to someone else. There was a +whispering, waiting pause. Then a big man, with a cleanly-shaven face, beckoned +them from the top of a flight of red marble steps. +</p> + +<p> +They went up; the boots of Robert clattering more than usual because he was so +nervous. A door swung open, a curtain was drawn back. A double line of bowing +forms in gorgeous raiment formed a lane that led to the steps of the throne, +and as the children advanced hurriedly there came from the throne a voice very +sweet and kind. +</p> + +<p> +“Three children from the land where the sun never sets! Let them draw +hither without fear.” +</p> + +<p> +In another minute they were kneeling at the throne’s foot, saying, +“O Queen, live for ever!” exactly as the woman had taught them. And +a splendid dream-lady, all gold and silver and jewels and snowy drift of veils, +was raising Anthea, and saying— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be frightened, I really am <i>so</i> glad you came! The land +where the sun never sets! I am delighted to see you! I was getting quite too +dreadfully bored for anything!” +</p> + +<p> +And behind Anthea the kneeling Cyril whispered in the ears of the respectful +Robert— +</p> + +<p> +“Bobs, don’t say anything to Panther. It’s no use upsetting +her, but we didn’t ask for Jane’s address, and the Psammead’s +with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” whispered Robert, “the charm can bring them to us at +any moment. <i>It</i> said so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” whispered Cyril, in miserable derision, +“<i>we’re</i> all right, of course. So we are! Oh, yes! If +we’d only <i>got</i> the charm.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Robert saw, and he murmured, “Crikey!” at the foot of the +throne of Babylon; while Cyril hoarsely whispered the plain English fact— +</p> + +<p> +“Jane’s got the charm round her neck, you silly cuckoo.” +</p> + +<p> +“Crikey!” Robert repeated in heart-broken undertones. +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /> +“THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT”</h2> + +<p> +The Queen threw three of the red and gold embroidered cushions off the throne +on to the marble steps that led up to it. +</p> + +<p> +“Just make yourselves comfortable there,” she said. +“I’m simply dying to talk to you, and to hear all about your +wonderful country and how you got here, and everything, but I have to do +justice every morning. Such a bore, isn’t it? Do you do justice in your +own country?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Cyril; “at least of course we try to, but not in +this public sort of way, only in private.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes,” said the Queen, “I should much prefer a private +audience myself—much easier to manage. But public opinion has to be +considered. Doing justice is very hard work, even when you’re brought up +to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t do justice, but we have to do scales, Jane and me,” +said Anthea, “twenty minutes a day. It’s simply horrid.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are scales?” asked the Queen, “and what is Jane?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jane is my little sister. One of the guards-at-the-gate’s wife is +taking care of her. And scales are music.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never heard of the instrument,” said the Queen. “Do you +sing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes. We can sing in parts,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“That <i>is</i> magic,” said the Queen. “How many parts are +you each cut into before you do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“We aren’t cut at all,” said Robert hastily. “We +couldn’t sing if we were. We’ll show you afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you shall, and now sit quiet like dear children and hear me do +justice. The way I do it has always been admired. I oughtn’t to say that, +ought I? Sounds so conceited. But I don’t mind with you, dears. Somehow I +feel as though I’d known you quite a long time already.” +</p> + +<p> +The Queen settled herself on her throne and made a signal to her attendants. +The children, whispering together among the cushions on the steps of the +throne, decided that she was very beautiful and very kind, but perhaps just the +least bit flighty. +</p> + +<p> +The first person who came to ask for justice was a woman whose brother had +taken the money the father had left for her. The brother said it was the uncle +who had the money. There was a good deal of talk and the children were growing +rather bored, when the Queen suddenly clapped her hands, and said— +</p> + +<p> +“Put both the men in prison till one of them owns up that the other is +innocent.” +</p> + +<p> +“But suppose they both did it?” Cyril could not help interrupting. +</p> + +<p> +“Then prison’s the best place for them,” said the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“But suppose neither did it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s impossible,” said the Queen; “a thing’s +not done unless someone does it. And you mustn’t interrupt.” +</p> + +<p> +Then came a woman, in tears, with a torn veil and real ashes on her +head—at least Anthea thought so, but it may have been only road-dust. She +complained that her husband was in prison. +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” said the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“They <i>said</i> it was for speaking evil of your Majesty,” said +the woman, “but it wasn’t. Someone had a spite against him. That +was what it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know he hadn’t spoken evil of me?” said the +Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“No one could,” said the woman simply, “when they’d +once seen your beautiful face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let the man out,” said the Queen, smiling. “Next +case.” +</p> + +<p> +The next case was that of a boy who had stolen a fox. “Like the Spartan +boy,” whispered Robert. But the Queen ruled that nobody could have any +possible reason for owning a fox, and still less for stealing one. And she did +not believe that there were any foxes in Babylon; she, at any rate, had never +seen one. So the boy was released. +</p> + +<p> +The people came to the Queen about all sorts of family quarrels and neighbourly +misunderstandings—from a fight between brothers over the division of an +inheritance, to the dishonest and unfriendly conduct of a woman who had +borrowed a cooking-pot at the last New Year’s festival, and not returned +it yet. +</p> + +<p> +And the Queen decided everything, very, very decidedly indeed. At last she +clapped her hands quite suddenly and with extreme loudness, and said— +</p> + +<p> +“The audience is over for today.” +</p> + +<p> +Everyone said, “May the Queen live for ever!” and went out. +</p> + +<p> +And the children were left alone in the justice-hall with the Queen of Babylon +and her ladies. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said the Queen, with a long sigh of relief. +“<i>That’s</i> over! I couldn’t have done another stitch of +justice if you’d offered me the crown of Egypt! Now come into the garden, +and we’ll have a nice, long, cosy talk.” +</p> + +<p> +She led them through long, narrow corridors whose walls they somehow felt, were +very, very thick, into a sort of garden courtyard. There were thick shrubs +closely planted, and roses were trained over trellises, and made a pleasant +shade—needed, indeed, for already the sun was as hot as it is in England +in August at the seaside. +</p> + +<p> +Slaves spread cushions on a low, marble terrace, and a big man with a smooth +face served cool drink in cups of gold studded with beryls. He drank a little +from the Queen’s cup before handing it to her. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s rather a nasty trick,” whispered Robert, who had been +carefully taught never to drink out of one of the nice, shiny, metal cups that +are chained to the London drinking fountains without first rinsing it out +thoroughly. +</p> + +<p> +The Queen overheard him. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said she. “Ritti-Marduk is a very clean man. +And one has to have <i>someone</i> as taster, you know, because of +poison.” +</p> + +<p> +The word made the children feel rather creepy; but Ritti-Marduk had tasted all +the cups, so they felt pretty safe. The drink was delicious—very cold, +and tasting like lemonade and partly like penny ices. +</p> + +<p> +“Leave us,” said the Queen. And all the Court ladies, in their +beautiful, many-folded, many-coloured, fringed dresses, filed out slowly, and +the children were left alone with the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” she said, “tell me all about yourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +They looked at each other. +</p> + +<p> +“You, Bobs,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“No—Anthea,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“No—you—Cyril,” said Anthea. “Don’t you +remember how pleased the Queen of India was when you told her all about +us?” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril muttered that it was all very well, and so it was. For when he had told +the tale of the Phœnix and the Carpet to the Ranee, it had been only the +truth—and all the truth that he had to tell. But now it was not easy to +tell a convincing story without mentioning the Amulet—which, of course, +it wouldn’t have done to mention—and without owning that they were +really living in London, about 2,500 years later than the time they were +talking in. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril took refuge in the tale of the Psammead and its wonderful power of making +wishes come true. The children had never been able to tell anyone before, and +Cyril was surprised to find that the spell which kept them silent in London did +not work here. “Something to do with our being in the Past, I +suppose,” he said to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“This is <i>most</i> interesting,” said the Queen. “We must +have this Psammead for the banquet tonight. Its performance will be one of the +most popular turns in the whole programme. Where is it?” +</p> + +<p> +Anthea explained that they did not know; also why it was that they did not +know. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>that’s</i> quite simple,” said the Queen, and +everyone breathed a deep sigh of relief as she said it. “Ritti-Marduk +shall run down to the gates and find out which guard your sister went home +with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Might he”—Anthea’s voice was +tremulous—“might he—would it interfere with his meal-times, +or anything like that, if he went <i>now?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he shall go now. He may think himself lucky if he gets his +meals at any time,” said the Queen heartily, and clapped her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“May I send a letter?” asked Cyril, pulling out a red-backed penny +account-book, and feeling in his pockets for a stump of pencil that he +<i>knew</i> was in one of them. +</p> + +<p> +“By all means. I’ll call my scribe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I can scribe right enough, thanks,” said Cyril, finding the +pencil and licking its point. He even had to bite the wood a little, for it was +very blunt. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you clever, clever boy!” said the Queen. “<i>do</i> let +me watch you do it!” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril wrote on a leaf of the book—it was of rough, woolly paper, with +hairs that stuck out and would have got in his pen if he had been using one, +and ruled for accounts. +</p> + +<p> +“Hide IT most carefully before you come here,” he wrote, “and +don’t mention it—and destroy this letter. Everything is going A1. +The Queen is a fair treat. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” +</p> + +<p> +“What curious characters, and what a strange flat surface!” said +the Queen. “What have you inscribed?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve “scribed,” replied Cyril cautiously, “that +you are fair, and a—and like a—like a festival; and that she need +not be afraid, and that she is to come at once.” +</p> + +<p> +Ritti-Marduk, who had come in and had stood waiting while Cyril wrote, his +Babylonish eyes nearly starting out of his Babylonish head, now took the +letter, with some reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +“O Queen, live for ever! Is it a charm?” he timidly asked. “A +strong charm, most great lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Yes</i>,” said Robert, unexpectedly, “it <i>is</i> a +charm, but it won’t hurt anyone until you’ve given it to Jane. And +then she’ll destroy it, so that it <i>can’t</i> hurt anyone. +It’s most awful strong!—as strong as—Peppermint!” he +ended abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“I know not the god,” said Ritti-Marduk, bending timorously. +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll tear it up directly she gets it,” said Robert, +“That’ll end the charm. You needn’t be afraid if you go +now.” +</p> + +<p> +Ritti-Marduk went, seeming only partly satisfied; and then the Queen began to +admire the penny account-book and the bit of pencil in so marked and +significant a way that Cyril felt he could not do less than press them upon her +as a gift. She ruffled the leaves delightedly. +</p> + +<p> +“What a wonderful substance!” she said. “And with this style +you make charms? Make a charm for me! Do you know,” her voice sank to a +whisper, “the names of the great ones of your own far country?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather!” said Cyril, and hastily wrote the names of Alfred the +Great, Shakespeare, Nelson, Gordon, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr Rudyard Kipling, and +Mr Sherlock Holmes, while the Queen watched him with “unbaited +breath”, as Anthea said afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +She took the book and hid it reverently among the bright folds of her gown. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall teach me later to say the great names,” she said. +“And the names of their Ministers—perhaps the great Nisroch is one +of them?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so,” said Cyril. “Mr Campbell +Bannerman’s Prime Minister and Mr Burns a Minister, and so is the +Archbishop of Canterbury, I think, but I’m not sure—and Dr Parker +was one, I know, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“No more,” said the Queen, putting her hands to her ears. “My +head’s going round with all those great names. You shall teach them to me +later—because of course you’ll make us a nice long visit now you +have come, won’t you? Now tell me—but no, I am quite tired out with +your being so clever. Besides, I’m sure you’d like <i>me</i> to +tell <i>you</i> something, wouldn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea. “I want to know how it is that the King +has gone—” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, but you should say ‘the King +may-he-live-for-ever’,” said the Queen gently. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” Anthea hastened to say—“the King +may-he-live-for-ever has gone to fetch home his fourteenth wife? I don’t +think even Bluebeard had as many as that. And, besides, he hasn’t killed +<i>you</i> at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +The Queen looked bewildered. +</p> + +<p> +“She means,” explained Robert, “that English kings only have +one wife—at least, Henry the Eighth had seven or eight, but not all at +once.” +</p> + +<p> +“In our country,” said the Queen scornfully, “a king would +not reign a day who had only one wife. No one would respect him, and quite +right too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then are all the other thirteen alive?” asked Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course they are—poor mean-spirited things! I don’t +associate with them, of course, I am the Queen: they’re only the +wives.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Anthea, gasping. +</p> + +<p> +“But oh, my dears,” the Queen went on, “such a to-do as +there’s been about this last wife! You never did! It really was +<i>too</i> funny. We wanted an Egyptian princess. The King may-he-live-for-ever +has got a wife from most of the important nations, and he had set his heart on +an Egyptian one to complete his collection. Well, of course, to begin with, we +sent a handsome present of gold. The Egyptian king sent back some +horses—quite a few; he’s fearfully stingy!—and he said he +liked the gold very much, but what they were really short of was lapis lazuli, +so of course we sent him some. But by that time he’d begun to use the +gold to cover the beams of the roof of the Temple of the Sun-God, and he +hadn’t nearly enough to finish the job, so we sent some more. And so it +went on, oh, for years. You see each journey takes at least six months. And at +last we asked the hand of his daughter in marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and then?” said Anthea, who wanted to get to the princess +part of the story. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said the Queen, “when he’d got everything +out of us that he could, and only given the meanest presents in return, he sent +to say he would esteem the honour of an alliance very highly, only +unfortunately he hadn’t any daughter, but he hoped one would be born +soon, and if so, she should certainly be reserved for the King of +Babylon!” +</p> + +<p> +“What a trick!” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, wasn’t it? So then we said his sister would do, and then +there were more gifts and more journeys; and now at last the tiresome, +black-haired thing is coming, and the King may-he-live-for-ever has gone seven +days’ journey to meet her at Carchemish. And he’s gone in his best +chariot, the one inlaid with lapis lazuli and gold, with the gold-plated wheels +and onyx-studded hubs—much too great an honour in my opinion. +She’ll be here tonight; there’ll be a grand banquet to celebrate +her arrival. <i>She</i> won’t be present, of course. She’ll be +having her baths and her anointings, and all that sort of thing. We always +clean our foreign brides very carefully. It takes two or three weeks. Now +it’s dinnertime, and you shall eat with me, for I can see that you are of +high rank.” +</p> + +<p> +She led them into a dark, cool hall, with many cushions on the floor. On these +they sat and low tables were brought—beautiful tables of smooth, blue +stone mounted in gold. On these, golden trays were placed; but there were no +knives, or forks, or spoons. The children expected the Queen to call for them; +but no. She just ate with her fingers, and as the first dish was a great tray +of boiled corn, and meat and raisins all mixed up together, and melted fat +poured all over the tray, it was found difficult to follow her example with +anything like what we are used to think of as good table manners. There were +stewed quinces afterwards, and dates in syrup, and thick yellowy cream. It was +the kind of dinner you hardly ever get in Fitzroy Street. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner everybody went to sleep, even the children. +</p> + +<p> +The Queen awoke with a start. +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” she cried, “what a time we’ve slept! I +must rush off and dress for the banquet. I shan’t have much more than +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t Ritti-Marduk got back with our sister and the Psammead +yet?” Anthea asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>quite</i> forgot to ask. I’m sorry,” said the Queen. +“And of course they wouldn’t announce her unless I told them to, +except during justice hours. I expect she’s waiting outside. I’ll +see.” +</p> + +<p> +Ritti-Marduk came in a moment later. +</p> + +<p> +“I regret,” he said, “that I have been unable to find your +sister. The beast she bears with her in a basket has bitten the child of the +guard, and your sister and the beast set out to come to you. The police say +they have a clue. No doubt we shall have news of her in a few weeks.” He +bowed and withdrew. +</p> + +<p> +The horror of this threefold loss—Jane, the Psammead, and the +Amulet—gave the children something to talk about while the Queen was +dressing. I shall not report their conversation; it was very gloomy. Everyone +repeated himself several times, and the discussion ended in each of them +blaming the other two for having let Jane go. You know the sort of talk it was, +don’t you? At last Cyril said— +</p> + +<p> +“After all, she’s with the Psammead, so <i>she’s</i> all +right. The Psammead is jolly careful of itself too. And it isn’t as if we +were in any danger. Let’s try to buck up and enjoy the banquet.” +</p> + +<p> +They did enjoy the banquet. They had a beautiful bath, which was delicious, +were heavily oiled all over, including their hair, and that was most +unpleasant. Then, they dressed again and were presented to the King, who was +most affable. The banquet was long; there were all sorts of nice things to eat, +and everybody seemed to eat and drink a good deal. Everyone lay on cushions and +couches, ladies on one side and gentlemen on the other; and after the eating +was done each lady went and sat by some gentleman, who seemed to be her +sweetheart or her husband, for they were very affectionate to each other. The +Court dresses had gold threads woven in them, very bright and beautiful. +</p> + +<p> +The middle of the room was left clear, and different people came and did +amusing things. There were conjurers and jugglers and snake-charmers, which +last Anthea did not like at all. +</p> + +<p> +When it got dark torches were lighted. Cedar splinters dipped in oil blazed in +copper dishes set high on poles. +</p> + +<p> +Then there was a dancer, who hardly danced at all, only just struck attitudes. +She had hardly any clothes, and was not at all pretty. The children were rather +bored by her, but everyone else was delighted, including the King. +</p> + +<p> +“By the beard of Nimrod!” he cried, “ask what you like girl, +and you shall have it!” +</p> + +<p> +“I want nothing,” said the dancer; “the honour of having +pleased the King may-he-live-for-ever is reward enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +And the King was so pleased with this modest and sensible reply that he gave +her the gold collar off his own neck. +</p> + +<p> +“I say!” said Cyril, awed by the magnificence of the gift. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right,” whispered the Queen, “it’s not +his best collar by any means. We always keep a stock of cheap jewellery for +these occasions. And now—you promised to sing us something. Would you +like my minstrels to accompany you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said Anthea quickly. The minstrels had been +playing off and on all the time, and their music reminded Anthea of the band +she and the others had once had on the fifth of November—with penny +horns, a tin whistle, a tea-tray, the tongs, a policeman’s rattle, and a +toy drum. They had enjoyed this band very much at the time. But it was quite +different when someone else was making the same kind of music. Anthea +understood now that Father had not been really heartless and unreasonable when +he had told them to stop that infuriating din. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall we sing?” Cyril was asking. +</p> + +<p> +“Sweet and low?” suggested Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Too soft—I vote for ‘Who will o’er the downs’. +Now then—one, two, three. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh, who will o’er the downs so free,<br /> + Oh, who will with me ride,<br /> +Oh, who will up and follow me,<br /> + To win a blooming bride?<br /> +<br /> +Her father he has locked the door,<br /> + Her mother keeps the key;<br /> +But neither bolt nor bar shall keep<br /> + My own true love from me.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane, the alto, was missing, and Robert, unlike the mother of the lady in the +song, never could “keep the key”, but the song, even so, was +sufficiently unlike anything any of them had ever heard to rouse the Babylonian +Court to the wildest enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“More, more,” cried the King; “by my beard, this savage music +is a new thing. Sing again!” +</p> + +<p> +So they sang: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I saw her bower at twilight gray,<br /> + ’Twas guarded safe and sure.<br /> +I saw her bower at break of day,<br /> + ’Twas guarded then no more.<br /> +<br /> +The varlets they were all asleep,<br /> + And there was none to see<br /> +The greeting fair that passed there<br /> + Between my love and me.” <br /> +</p> + +<p> +Shouts of applause greeted the ending of the verse, and the King would not be +satisfied till they had sung all their part-songs (they only knew three) twice +over, and ended up with “Men of Harlech” in unison. Then the King +stood up in his royal robes with his high, narrow crown on his head and +shouted— +</p> + +<p> +“By the beak of Nisroch, ask what you will, strangers from the land where +the sun never sets!” +</p> + +<p> +“We ought to say it’s enough honour, like the dancer did,” +whispered Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“No, let’s ask for <i>It</i>,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, I’m sure the other’s manners,” said Anthea. +But Robert, who was excited by the music, and the flaring torches, and the +applause and the opportunity, spoke up before the others could stop him. +</p> + +<p> +“Give us the half of the Amulet that has on it the name U<small>R</small> +H<small>EKAU</small> S<small>ETCHEH</small>,” he said, adding as an +afterthought, “O King, live-for-ever.” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke the great name those in the pillared hall fell on their faces, and +lay still. All but the Queen who crouched amid her cushions with her head in +her hands, and the King, who stood upright, perfectly still, like the statue of +a king in stone. It was only for a moment though. Then his great voice +thundered out— +</p> + +<p> +“Guard, seize them!” +</p> + +<p> +Instantly, from nowhere as it seemed, sprang eight soldiers in bright armour +inlaid with gold, and tunics of red and white. Very splendid they were, and +very alarming. +</p> + +<p> +“Impious and sacrilegious wretches!” shouted the King. “To +the dungeons with them! We will find a way, tomorrow, to make them speak. For +without doubt they can tell us where to find the lost half of <i>It</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +A wall of scarlet and white and steel and gold closed up round the children and +hurried them away among the many pillars of the great hall. As they went they +heard the voices of the courtiers loud in horror. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve done it this time,” said Cyril with extreme +bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it will come right. It <i>must</i>. It always does,” said +Anthea desperately. +</p> + +<p> +They could not see where they were going, because the guard surrounded them so +closely, but the ground under their feet, smooth marble at first, grew rougher +like stone, then it was loose earth and sand, and they felt the night air. Then +there was more stone, and steps down. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my belief we really <i>are</i> going to the deepest dungeon +below the castle moat this time,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +And they were. At least it was not below a moat, but below the river Euphrates, +which was just as bad if not worse. In a most unpleasant place it was. Dark, +very, very damp, and with an odd, musty smell rather like the shells of +oysters. There was a torch—that is to say, a copper basket on a high +stick with oiled wood burning in it. By its light the children saw that the +walls were green, and that trickles of water ran down them and dripped from the +roof. There were things on the floor that looked like newts, and in the dark +corners creepy, shiny things moved sluggishly, uneasily, horribly. +</p> + +<p> +Robert’s heart sank right into those really reliable boots of his. Anthea +and Cyril each had a private struggle with that inside disagreeableness which +is part of all of us, and which is sometimes called the Old Adam—and both +were victors. Neither of them said to Robert (and both tried hard not even to +think it), “This is <i>your</i> doing.” Anthea had the additional +temptation to add, “I told you so.” And she resisted it +successfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Sacrilege, and impious cheek,” said the captain of the guard to +the gaoler. “To be kept during the King’s pleasure. I expect he +means to get some pleasure out of them tomorrow! He’ll tickle them +up!” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor little kids,” said the gaoler. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said the captain. “I’ve got kids of my own +too. But it doesn’t do to let domestic sentiment interfere with +one’s public duties. Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +The soldiers tramped heavily off in their white and red and steel and gold. The +gaoler, with a bunch of big keys in his hand, stood looking pityingly at the +children. He shook his head twice and went out. +</p> + +<p> +“Courage!” said Anthea. “I know it will be all right. +It’s only a dream <i>really</i>, you know. It <i>must</i> be! I +don’t believe about time being only a something or other of thought. It +<i>is</i> a dream, and we’re bound to wake up all right and safe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Humph,” said Cyril bitterly. And Robert suddenly said— +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all my doing. If it really is all up do please not keep a +down on me about it, and tell Father—Oh, I forgot.” +</p> + +<p> +What he had forgotten was that his father was 3,000 miles and 5,000 or more +years away from him. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, Bobs, old man,” said Cyril; and Anthea got hold of +Robert’s hand and squeezed it. +</p> + +<p> +Then the gaoler came back with a platter of hard, flat cakes made of coarse +grain, very different from the cream-and-juicy-date feasts of the palace; also +a pitcher of water. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank you so very much. You <i>are</i> kind,” said Anthea +feverishly. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to sleep,” said the gaoler, pointing to a heap of straw in a +corner; “tomorrow comes soon enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear Mr Gaoler,” said Anthea, “whatever will they do to +us tomorrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’ll try to make you tell things,” said the gaoler +grimly, “and my advice is if you’ve nothing to tell, make up +something. Then perhaps they’ll sell you to the Northern nations. Regular +savages <i>they</i> are. Good night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good night,” said three trembling voices, which their owners +strove in vain to render firm. Then he went out, and the three were left alone +in the damp, dim vault. +</p> + +<p> +“I know the light won’t last long,” said Cyril, looking at +the flickering brazier. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it any good, do you think, calling on the name when we haven’t +got the charm?” suggested Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t think so. But we might try.” +</p> + +<p> +So they tried. But the blank silence of the damp dungeon remained unchanged. +</p> + +<p> +“What was the name the Queen said?” asked Cyril suddenly. +“Nisbeth—Nesbit—something? You know, the slave of the great +names?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a sec,” said Robert, “though I don’t know why you +want it. Nusroch—Nisrock—Nisroch—that’s it.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Anthea pulled herself together. All her muscles tightened, and the muscles +of her mind and soul, if you can call them that, tightened too. +</p> + +<p> +“U<small>R</small> H<small>EKAU</small> S<small>ETCHEH</small>,” +she cried in a fervent voice. “Oh, Nisroch, servant of the Great Ones, +come and help us!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a waiting silence. Then a cold, blue light awoke in the corner where +the straw was—and in the light they saw coming towards them a strange and +terrible figure. I won’t try to describe it, because the drawing shows +it, exactly as it was, and exactly as the old Babylonians carved it on their +stones, so that you can see it in our own British Museum at this day. I will +just say that it had eagle’s wings and an eagle’s head and the body +of a man. +</p> + +<p> +It came towards them, strong and unspeakably horrible. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, go away,” cried Anthea; but Cyril cried, “No; +stay!” +</p> + +<p> +The creature hesitated, then bowed low before them on the damp floor of the +dungeon. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak,” it said, in a harsh, grating voice like large rusty keys +being turned in locks. “The servant of the Great Ones is <i>your</i> +servant. What is your need that you call on the name of Nisroch?” +</p> + +<p> +“We want to go home,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” cried Anthea; “we want to be where Jane is.” +</p> + +<p> +Nisroch raised his great arm and pointed at the wall of the dungeon. And, as he +pointed, the wall disappeared, and instead of the damp, green, rocky surface, +there shone and glowed a room with rich hangings of red silk embroidered with +golden water-lilies, with cushioned couches and great mirrors of polished +steel; and in it was the Queen, and before her, on a red pillow, sat the +Psammead, its fur hunched up in an irritated, discontented way. On a +blue-covered couch lay Jane fast asleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Walk forward without fear,” said Nisroch. “Is there aught +else that the Servant of the great Name can do for those who speak that +name?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—oh, <i>no</i>,” said Cyril. “It’s all right +now. Thanks ever so.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a dear,” cried Anthea, not in the least knowing what she +was saying. “Oh, thank you thank you. But <i>do</i> go <i>now!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She caught the hand of the creature, and it was cold and hard in hers, like a +hand of stone. +</p> + +<p> +“Go forward,” said Nisroch. And they went. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my good gracious,” said the Queen as they stood before her. +“How did you get here? I <i>knew</i> you were magic. I meant to let you +out the first thing in the morning, if I could slip away—but thanks be to +Dagon, you’ve managed it for yourselves. You must get away. I’ll +wake my chief lady and she shall call Ritti-Marduk, and he’ll let you out +the back way, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t rouse anybody for goodness’ sake,” said Anthea, +“except Jane, and I’ll rouse her.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook Jane with energy, and Jane slowly awoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Ritti-Marduk brought them in hours ago, really,” said the Queen, +“but I wanted to have the Psammead all to myself for a bit. You’ll +excuse the little natural deception?—it’s part of the Babylonish +character, don’t you know? But I don’t want anything to happen to +you. Do let me rouse someone.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no,” said Anthea with desperate earnestness. She thought +she knew enough of what the Babylonians were like when they were roused. +“We can go by our own magic. And you will tell the King it wasn’t +the gaoler’s fault. It was Nisroch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nisroch!” echoed the Queen. “You are indeed +magicians.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane sat up, blinking stupidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold <i>It</i> up, and say the word,” cried Cyril, catching up the +Psammead, which mechanically bit him, but only very slightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Which is the East?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Behind me,” said the Queen. “Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ur Hekau Setcheh,” said Jane sleepily, and held up the charm. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And there they all were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane,” cried Cyril with great presence of mind, “go and get +the plate of sand down for the Psammead.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane went. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here!” he said quickly, as the sound of her boots grew less +loud on the stairs, “don’t let’s tell her about the dungeon +and all that. It’ll only frighten her so that she’ll never want to +go anywhere else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Righto!” said Cyril; but Anthea felt that she could not have said +a word to save her life. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you want to come back in such a hurry?” asked Jane, +returning with the plate of sand. “It was awfully jolly in Babylon, I +think! I liked it no end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Cyril carelessly. “It was jolly enough, of +course, but I thought we’d been there long enough. Mother always says you +oughtn’t to wear out your welcome!” +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +THE QUEEN IN LONDON</h2> + +<p> +“Now tell us what happened to you,” said Cyril to Jane, when he and +the others had told her all about the Queen’s talk and the banquet, and +the variety entertainment, carefully stopping short before the beginning of the +dungeon part of the story. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t much good going,” said Jane, “if you +didn’t even try to get the Amulet.” +</p> + +<p> +“We found out it was no go,” said Cyril; “it’s not to +be got in Babylon. It was lost before that. We’ll go to some other jolly +friendly place, where everyone is kind and pleasant, and look for it there. Now +tell us about your part.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Jane, “the Queen’s man with the smooth +face—what was his name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ritti-Marduk,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Jane, “Ritti-Marduk, he came for me just after +the Psammead had bitten the guard-of-the-gate’s wife’s little boy, +and he took me to the Palace. And we had supper with the new little Queen from +Egypt. She is a dear—not much older than you. She told me heaps about +Egypt. And we played ball after supper. And then the Babylon Queen sent for me. +I like her too. And she talked to the Psammead and I went to sleep. And then +you woke me up. That’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead, roused from its sound sleep, told the same story. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” it added, “what possessed you to tell that Queen that +I could give wishes? I sometimes think you were born without even the most +rudimentary imitation of brains.” +</p> + +<p> +The children did not know the meaning of rudimentary, but it sounded a rude, +insulting word. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that we did any harm,” said Cyril sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said the Psammead with withering irony, “not at +all! Of course not! Quite the contrary! Exactly so! Only she happened to wish +that she might soon find herself in your country. And soon may mean any +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s your fault,” said Robert, “because you might +just as well have made ‘soon’ mean some moment next year or next +century.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s where you, as so often happens, make the mistake,” +rejoined the Sand-fairy. “<i>I</i> couldn’t mean anything but what +<i>she</i> meant by ‘soon’. It wasn’t my wish. And what she +meant was the next time the King happens to go out lion hunting. So +she’ll have a whole day, and perhaps two, to do as she wishes with. She +doesn’t know about time only being a mode of thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Cyril, with a sigh of resignation, “we must do +what we can to give her a good time. She was jolly decent to us. I say, suppose +we were to go to St James’s Park after dinner and feed those ducks that +we never did feed. After all that Babylon and all those years ago, I feel as if +I should like to see something <i>real</i>, and <i>now</i>. You’ll come, +Psammead?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s my priceless woven basket of sacred rushes?” asked +the Psammead morosely. “I can’t go out with nothing on. And I +won’t, what’s more.” +</p> + +<p> +And then everybody remembered with pain that the bass bag had, in the hurry of +departure from Babylon, not been remembered. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s not so extra precious,” said Robert hastily. +“You can get them given to you for nothing if you buy fish in Farringdon +Market.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the Psammead very crossly indeed, “so you presume +on my sublime indifference to the things of this disgusting modern world, to +fob me off with a travelling equipage that costs you nothing. Very well, I +shall go to sand. Please don’t wake me.” +</p> + +<p> +And it went then and there to sand, which, as you know, meant to bed. The boys +went to St James’s Park to feed the ducks, but they went alone. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea and Jane sat sewing all the afternoon. They cut off half a yard from +each of their best green Liberty sashes. A towel cut in two formed a lining; +and they sat and sewed and sewed and sewed. What they were making was a bag for +the Psammead. Each worked at a half of the bag. Jane’s half had +four-leaved shamrocks embroidered on it. They were the only things she could do +(because she had been taught how at school, and, fortunately, some of the silk +she had been taught with was left over). And even so, Anthea had to draw the +pattern for her. Anthea’s side of the bag had letters on it—worked +hastily but affectionately in chain stitch. They were something like this: +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/fig04.jpg" width="400" height="337" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<p> +She would have put “travelling carriage”, but she made the letters +too big, so there was no room. The bag was made <i>into</i> a bag with old +Nurse’s sewing machine, and the strings of it were Anthea’s and +Jane’s best red hair ribbons. +</p> + +<p> +At tea-time, when the boys had come home with a most unfavourable report of the +St James’s Park ducks, Anthea ventured to awaken the Psammead, and to +show it its new travelling bag. +</p> + +<p> +“Humph,” it said, sniffing a little contemptuously, yet at the same +time affectionately, “it’s not so dusty.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead seemed to pick up very easily the kind of things that people said +nowadays. For a creature that had in its time associated with Megatheriums and +Pterodactyls, its quickness was really wonderful. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s more worthy of me,” it said, “than the kind of +bag that’s given away with a pound of plaice. When do you propose to take +me out in it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like a rest from taking you or us anywhere,” said Cyril. +But Jane said— +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go to Egypt. I did like that Egyptian Princess that came to +marry the King in Babylon. She told me about the larks they have in Egypt. And +the cats. Do let’s go there. And I told her what the bird things on the +Amulet were like. And she said it was Egyptian writing.” +</p> + +<p> +The others exchanged looks of silent rejoicing at the thought of their +cleverness in having concealed from Jane the terrors they had suffered in the +dungeon below the Euphrates. +</p> + +<p> +“Egypt’s so nice too,” Jane went on, “because of Doctor +Brewer’s Scripture History. I would like to go there when Joseph was +dreaming those curious dreams, or when Moses was doing wonderful things with +snakes and sticks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care about snakes,” said Anthea shuddering. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we needn’t be in at that part, but Babylon was lovely! We +had cream and sweet, sticky stuff. And I expect Egypt’s the same.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a good deal of discussion, but it all ended in everybody’s +agreeing to Jane’s idea. And next morning directly after breakfast (which +was kippers and very nice) the Psammead was invited to get into his travelling +carriage. +</p> + +<p> +The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, like that of a +cat when you want to nurse it, and its ideas are not the same as yours, old +Nurse came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, chickies,” she said, “are you feeling very +dull?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, Nurse dear,” said Anthea; “we’re having a +lovely time. We’re just going off to see some old ancient relics.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said old Nurse, “the Royal Academy, I suppose? +Don’t go wasting your money too reckless, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +She cleared away the kipper bones and the tea-things, and when she had swept up +the crumbs and removed the cloth, the Amulet was held up and the order +given—just as Duchesses (and other people) give it to their coachmen. +</p> + +<p> +“To Egypt, please!” said Anthea, when Cyril had uttered the +wonderful Name of Power. +</p> + +<p> +“When Moses was there,” added Jane. +</p> + +<p> +And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street dining-room, the Amulet grew big, and it +was an arch, and through it they saw a blue, blue sky and a running river. +</p> + +<p> +“No, stop!” said Cyril, and pulled down Jane’s hand with the +Amulet in it. +</p> + +<p> +“What silly cuckoos we all are,” he said. “Of course we +can’t go. We daren’t leave home for a single minute now, for fear +that minute should be <i>the</i> minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“What minute be <i>what</i> minute?” asked Jane impatiently, trying +to get her hand away from Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,” said Cyril. And then +everyone saw it. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful stream. The +children could never go out all at once, because they never knew when the King +of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave his Queen free to pay them that +surprise visit to which she was, without doubt, eagerly looking forward. +</p> + +<p> +So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in. +</p> + +<p> +The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but for the new +interest taken in them by the learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of purple and gold +beads. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw one like that,” she said, “in—” +</p> + +<p> +“In the British Museum, perhaps?” +</p> + +<p> +“I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,” said Anthea +cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty fancy,” said the learned gentleman, “and quite +correct too, because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from +Babylon.” +</p> + +<p> +The other three were all out that day. The boys had been going to the Zoo, and +Jane had said so plaintively, “I’m sure I am fonder of rhinoceroses +than either of you are,” that Anthea had told her to run along then. And +she had run, catching the boys before that part of the road where Fitzroy +Street suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square. +</p> + +<p> +“I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,” said Anthea. +“I do have such interesting dreams about it—at least, not dreams +exactly, but quite as wonderful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do sit down and tell me,” said he. So she sat down and told. And +he asked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as well as she could. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful—wonderful!” he said at last. “One’s +heard of thought-transference, but I never thought <i>I</i> had any power of +that sort. Yet it must be that, and very bad for <i>you</i>, I should think. +Doesn’t your head ache very much?” +</p> + +<p> +He suddenly put a cold, thin hand on her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“No thank you, not at all,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you it is not done intentionally,” he went on. “Of +course I know a good deal about Babylon, and I unconsciously communicate it to +you; you’ve heard of thought-reading, but some of the things you say, I +don’t understand; they never enter my head, and yet they’re so +astoundingly probable.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right,” said Anthea reassuringly. “<i>I</i> +understand. And don’t worry. It’s all quite simple really.” +</p> + +<p> +It was not quite so simple when Anthea, having heard the others come in, went +down, and before she had had time to ask how they had liked the Zoo, heard a +noise outside, compared to which the wild beasts’ noises were gentle as +singing birds. +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” cried Anthea, “what’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +The loud hum of many voices came through the open window. Words could be +distinguished. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere’s a guy!” +</p> + +<p> +“This ain’t November. That ain’t no guy. It’s a ballet +lady, that’s what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not it—it’s a bloomin’ looney, I tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +Then came a clear voice that they knew. +</p> + +<p> +“Retire, slaves!” it said. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s she a saying of?” cried a dozen voices. +</p> + +<p> +“Some blamed foreign lingo,” one voice replied. +</p> + +<p> +The children rushed to the door. A crowd was on the road and pavement. +</p> + +<p> +In the middle of the crowd, plainly to be seen from the top of the steps, were +the beautiful face and bright veil of the Babylonian Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“Jimminy!” cried Robert, and ran down the steps, “here she +is!” +</p> + +<p> +“Here!” he cried, “look out—let the lady pass. +She’s a friend of ours, coming to see us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nice friend for a respectable house,” snorted a fat woman with +marrows on a handcart. +</p> + +<p> +All the same the crowd made way a little. The Queen met Robert on the pavement, +and Cyril joined them, the Psammead bag still on his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” he whispered; “here’s the Psammead; you can get +wishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> wish you’d come in a different dress, if you <i>had</i> +to come,” said Robert; “but it’s no use my wishing +anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the Queen. “I wish I was dressed—no, I +don’t—I wish <i>they</i> were dressed properly, then they +wouldn’t be so silly.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead blew itself out till the bag was a very tight fit for it; and +suddenly every man, woman, and child in that crowd felt that it had not enough +clothes on. For, of course, the Queen’s idea of proper dress was the +dress that had been proper for the working-classes 3,000 years ago in +Babylon—and there was not much of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Lawky me!” said the marrow-selling woman, “whatever could +a-took me to come out this figure?” and she wheeled her cart away very +quickly indeed. +</p> + +<p> +“Someone’s made a pretty guy of you—talk of guys,” said +a man who sold bootlaces. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t you talk,” said the man next to him. “Look +at your own silly legs; and where’s your boots?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never come out like this, I’ll take my sacred,” said the +bootlace-seller. “I wasn’t quite myself last night, I’ll own, +but not to dress up like a circus.” +</p> + +<p> +The crowd was all talking at once, and getting rather angry. But no one seemed +to think of blaming the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea bounded down the steps and pulled her up; the others followed, and the +door was shut. +</p> + +<p> +“Blowed if I can make it out!” they heard. “I’m off +home, I am.” +</p> + +<p> +And the crowd, coming slowly to the same mind, dispersed, followed by another +crowd of persons who were not dressed in what the Queen thought was the proper +way. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have the police here directly,” said Anthea in the tones +of despair. “Oh, why did you come dressed like that?” +</p> + +<p> +The Queen leaned against the arm of the horse-hair sofa. +</p> + +<p> +“How else can a queen dress I should like to know?” she questioned. +</p> + +<p> +“Our Queen wears things like other people,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t. And I must say,” she remarked in an injured +tone, “that you don’t seem very glad to see me now I <i>have</i> +come. But perhaps it’s the surprise that makes you behave like this. Yet +you ought to be used to surprises. The way you vanished! I shall never forget +it. The best magic I’ve ever seen. How did you do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind about that now,” said Robert. “You see +you’ve gone and upset all those people, and I expect they’ll fetch +the police. And we don’t want to see you collared and put in +prison.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t put queens in prison,” she said loftily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, can’t you?” said Cyril. “We cut off a king’s +head here once.” +</p> + +<p> +“In this miserable room? How frightfully interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, not in this room; in history.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, in <i>that</i>,” said the Queen disparagingly. “I +thought you’d done it with your own hands.” +</p> + +<p> +The girls shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +“What a hideous city yours is,” the Queen went on pleasantly, +“and what horrid, ignorant people. Do you know they actually can’t +understand a single word I say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you understand them?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not; they speak some vulgar, Northern dialect. I can +understand <i>you</i> quite well.” +</p> + +<p> +I really am not going to explain <i>again</i> how it was that the children +could understand other languages than their own so thoroughly, and talk them, +too, so that it felt and sounded (to them) just as though they were talking +English. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Cyril bluntly, “now you’ve seen just how +horrid it is, don’t you think you might as well go home again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I’ve seen simply nothing yet,” said the Queen, +arranging her starry veil. “I wished to be at your door, and I was. Now I +must go and see your King and Queen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody’s allowed to,” said Anthea in haste; “but look +here, we’ll take you and show you anything you’d like to +see—anything you <i>can</i> see,” she added kindly, because she +remembered how nice the Queen had been to them in Babylon, even if she had been +a little deceitful in the matter of Jane and Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the Museum,” said Cyril hopefully; “there are +lots of things from your country there. If only we could disguise you a +little.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Anthea suddenly. “Mother’s old theatre +cloak, and there are a lot of her old hats in the big box.” +</p> + +<p> +The blue silk, lace-trimmed cloak did indeed hide some of the Queen’s +startling splendours, but the hat fitted very badly. It had pink roses in it; +and there was something about the coat or the hat or the Queen, that made her +look somehow not very respectable. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind,” said Anthea, when Cyril whispered this. +“The thing is to get her out before Nurse has finished her forty winks. I +should think she’s about got to the thirty-ninth wink by now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come on then,” said Robert. “You know how dangerous it is. +Let’s make haste into the Museum. If any of those people you made guys of +do fetch the police, they won’t think of looking for you there.” +</p> + +<p> +The blue silk coat and the pink-rosed hat attracted almost as much attention as +the royal costume had done; and the children were uncommonly glad to get out of +the noisy streets into the grey quiet of the Museum. +</p> + +<p> +“Parcels and umbrellas to be left here,” said a man at the counter. +</p> + +<p> +The party had no umbrellas, and the only parcel was the bag containing the +Psammead, which the Queen had insisted should be brought. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I’m</i> not going to be left,” said the Psammead softly, +“so don’t you think it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll wait outside with you,” said Anthea hastily, and went +to sit on the seat near the drinking fountain. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t sit so near that nasty fountain,” said the creature +crossly; “I might get splashed.” +</p> + +<p> +Anthea obediently moved to another seat and waited. Indeed she waited, and +waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. The Psammead dropped into an uneasy +slumber. Anthea had long ceased to watch the swing-door that always let out the +wrong person, and she was herself almost asleep, and still the others did not +come back. +</p> + +<p> +It was quite a start when Anthea suddenly realized that they <i>had</i> come +back, and that they were not alone. Behind them was quite a crowd of men in +uniform, and several gentlemen were there. Everyone seemed very angry. +</p> + +<p> +“Now go,” said the nicest of the angry gentlemen. “Take the +poor, demented thing home and tell your parents she ought to be properly looked +after.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you can’t get her to go we must send for the police,” +said the nastiest gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“But we don’t wish to use harsh measures,” added the nice +one, who was really very nice indeed, and seemed to be over all the others. +</p> + +<p> +“May I speak to my sister a moment first?” asked Robert. +</p> + +<p> +The nicest gentleman nodded, and the officials stood round the Queen, the +others forming a sort of guard while Robert crossed over to Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything you can think of,” he replied to Anthea’s glance +of inquiry. “Kicked up the most frightful shine in there. Said those +necklaces and earrings and things in the glass cases were all hers—would +have them out of the cases. Tried to break the glass—she did break one +bit! Everybody in the place has been at her. No good. I only got her out by +telling her that was the place where they cut queens’ heads off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bobs, what a whacker!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d have told a whackinger one to get her out. Besides, it +wasn’t. I meant <i>mummy</i> queens. How do you know they don’t cut +off mummies’ heads to see how the embalming is done? What I want to say +is, can’t you get her to go with you quietly?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try,” said Anthea, and went up to the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“Do come home,” she said; “the learned gentleman in our house +has a much nicer necklace than anything they’ve got here. Come and see +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The Queen nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” said the nastiest gentleman, “she does understand +English.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was talking Babylonian, I think,” said Anthea bashfully. +</p> + +<p> +“My good child,” said the nice gentleman, “what you’re +talking is not Babylonian, but nonsense. You just go home <i>at once</i>, and +tell your parents exactly what has happened.” +</p> + +<p> +Anthea took the Queen’s hand and gently pulled her away. The other +children followed, and the black crowd of angry gentlemen stood on the steps +watching them. It was when the little party of disgraced children, with the +Queen who had disgraced them, had reached the middle of the courtyard that her +eyes fell on the bag where the Psammead was. She stopped short. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish,” she said, very loud and clear, “that all those +Babylonian things would come out to me here—slowly, so that those dogs +and slaves can see the working of the great Queen’s magic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you <i>are</i> a tiresome woman,” said the Psammead in its +bag, but it puffed itself out. +</p> + +<p> +Next moment there was a crash. The glass swing doors and all their framework +were smashed suddenly and completely. The crowd of angry gentlemen sprang aside +when they saw what had done this. But the nastiest of them was not quick +enough, and he was roughly pushed out of the way by an enormous stone bull that +was floating steadily through the door. It came and stood beside the Queen in +the middle of the courtyard. +</p> + +<p> +It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved stone, bricks, +helmets, tools, weapons, fetters, wine-jars, bowls, bottles, vases, jugs, +saucers, seals, and the round long things, something like rolling pins with +marks on them like the print of little bird-feet, necklaces, collars, rings, +armlets, earrings—heaps and heaps and heaps of things, far more than +anyone had time to count, or even to see distinctly. +</p> + +<p> +All the angry gentlemen had abruptly sat down on the Museum steps except the +nice one. He stood with his hands in his pockets just as though he was quite +used to seeing great stone bulls and all sorts of small Babylonish objects +float out into the Museum yard. But he sent a man to close the big iron gates. +</p> + +<p> +A journalist, who was just leaving the museum, spoke to Robert as he passed. +</p> + +<p> +“Theosophy, I suppose?” he said. “Is she Mrs Besant?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Yes</i>,” said Robert recklessly. +</p> + +<p> +The journalist passed through the gates just before they were shut. He rushed +off to Fleet Street, and his paper got out a new edition within half an hour. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MRS BESANT AND THEOSOPHY<br /> +<br /> +<small>IMPERTINENT MIRACLE AT THE<br /> +BRITISH MUSEUM</small>. +</p> + +<p> +People saw it in fat, black letters on the boards carried by the sellers of +newspapers. Some few people who had nothing better to do went down to the +Museum on the tops of omnibuses. But by the time they got there there was +nothing to be seen. For the Babylonian Queen had suddenly seen the closed +gates, had felt the threat of them, and had said— +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we were in your house.” +</p> + +<p> +And, of course, instantly they were. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead was furious. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” it said, “they’ll come after you, and +they’ll find <i>me</i>. There’ll be a National Cage built for me at +Westminster, and I shall have to work at politics. Why wouldn’t you leave +the things in their places?” +</p> + +<p> +“What a temper you have, haven’t you?” said the Queen +serenely. “I wish all the things were back in their places. Will +<i>that</i> do for you?” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead swelled and shrank and spoke very angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t refuse to give your wishes,” it said, “but I +can Bite. And I will if this goes on. Now then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, don’t,” whispered Anthea close to its bristling ear; +“it’s dreadful for us too. Don’t <i>you</i> desert us. +Perhaps she’ll wish herself at home again soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not she,” said the Psammead a little less crossly. +</p> + +<p> +“Take me to see your City,” said the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +The children looked at each other. +</p> + +<p> +“If we had some money we could take her about in a cab. People +wouldn’t notice her so much then. But we haven’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sell this,” said the Queen, taking a ring from her finger. +</p> + +<p> +“They’d only think we’d stolen it,” said Cyril +bitterly, “and put us in prison.” +</p> + +<p> +“All roads lead to prison with you, it seems,” said the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“The learned gentleman!” said Anthea, and ran up to him with the +ring in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” she said, “will you buy this for a pound?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring into +his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my very own,” said Anthea; “it was given to me to +sell.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll lend you a pound,” said the learned gentleman, +“with pleasure; and I’ll take care of the ring for you. Who did you +say gave it to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“We call her,” said Anthea carefully, “the Queen of +Babylon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it a game?” he asked hopefully. +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll be a pretty game if I don’t get the money to pay for +cabs for her,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I sometimes think,” he said slowly, “that I am becoming +insane, or that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Or that I am; but I’m not, and you’re not, and she’s +not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does she <i>say</i> that she’s the Queen of Babylon?” he +uneasily asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea recklessly. +</p> + +<p> +“This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,” +he said. “I suppose I have unconsciously influenced <i>her</i>, too. I +never thought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. Horrible! There +are more things in heaven and earth—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea, “heaps more. And the pound is the thing +<i>I</i> want more than anything on earth.” +</p> + +<p> +He ran his fingers through his thin hair. +</p> + +<p> +“This thought-transference!” he said. “It’s undoubtedly +a Babylonian ring—or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have hypnotized +myself. I will see a doctor the moment I have corrected the last proofs of my +book.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, do!” said Anthea, “and thank you so very much.” +</p> + +<p> +She took the sovereign and ran down to the others. +</p> + +<p> +And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylon beheld the +wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thought uninteresting; Westminster +Abbey and the Houses of Parliament little better. But she liked the Tower, and +the River, and the ships filled her with wonder and delight. +</p> + +<p> +“But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and neglected +they seem,” she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End Road. +</p> + +<p> +“They aren’t slaves; they’re working-people,” said +Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course they’re working. That’s what slaves are. +Don’t you tell me. Do you suppose I don’t know a slave’s face +when I see it? Why don’t their masters see that they’re better fed +and better clothed? Tell me in three words.” +</p> + +<p> +No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficult to +explain in three words even if you understand it—which the children +didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have a revolt of your slaves if you’re not +careful,” said the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said Cyril; “you see they have votes—that +makes them safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is this vote?” asked the Queen. “Is it a charm? What do +they do with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said the harassed Cyril; “it’s +just a vote, that’s all! They don’t do anything particular with +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said the Queen; “a sort of plaything. Well, I wish +that all these slaves may have in their hands this moment their fill of their +favourite meat and drink.” +</p> + +<p> +Instantly all the people in the Mile End Road, and in all the other streets +where poor people live, found their hands full of things to eat and drink. From +the cab window could be seen persons carrying every kind of food, and bottles +and cans as well. Roast meat, fowls, red lobsters, great yellowy crabs, fried +fish, boiled pork, beef-steak puddings, baked onions, mutton pies; most of the +young people had oranges and sweets and cake. It made an enormous change in the +look of the Mile End Road—brightened it up, so to speak, and brightened +up, more than you can possibly imagine, the faces of the people. +</p> + +<p> +“Makes a difference, doesn’t it?” said the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the best wish you’ve had yet,” said Jane with +cordial approval. +</p> + +<p> +Just by the Bank the cabman stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t agoin’ to drive you no further,” he said. +“Out you gets.” +</p> + +<p> +They got out rather unwillingly. +</p> + +<p> +“I wants my tea,” he said; and they saw that on the box of the cab +was a mound of cabbage, with pork chops and apple sauce, a duck, and a spotted +currant pudding. Also a large can. +</p> + +<p> +“You pay me my fare,” he said threateningly, and looked down at the +mound, muttering again about his tea. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll take another cab,” said Cyril with dignity. +“Give me change for a sovereign, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice character. He took the +sovereign, whipped up his horse, and disappeared in the stream of cabs and +omnibuses and wagons, without giving them any change at all. +</p> + +<p> +Already a little crowd was collecting round the party. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” said Robert, leading the wrong way. +</p> + +<p> +The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where many +gentlemen in black coats and without hats were standing about on the pavement +talking very loudly. +</p> + +<p> +“How ugly their clothes are,” said the Queen of Babylon. +“They’d be rather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed +decently, especially the ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I wish +they were dressed like the Babylonians of my court.” +</p> + +<p> +And of course, it was so. +</p> + +<p> +The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every man in +Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian full dress. +</p> + +<p> +All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented and curled, +their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings and armlets, flat gold +collars and swords, and impossible-looking head-dresses. +</p> + +<p> +A stupefied silence fell on them. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” a youth who had always been fair-haired broke that +silence, “it’s only fancy of course—something wrong with my +eyes—but you chaps do look so rum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rum,” said his friend. “Look at <i>you</i>. You in a sash! +My hat! And your hair’s gone black and you’ve got a beard. +It’s my belief we’ve been poisoned. You do look a jackape.” +</p> + +<p> +“Old Levinstein don’t look so bad. But how was it +<i>done</i>—that’s what I want to know. How <i>was</i> it done? Is +it conjuring, or what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it is chust a ver’ bad tream,” said old Levinstein +to his clerk; “all along Bishopsgate I haf seen the gommon people have +their hants full of food—<i>goot</i> food. Oh yes, without doubt a very +bad tream!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’m dreaming too, sir,” said the clerk, looking down at +his legs with an expression of loathing. “I see my feet in beastly +sandals as plain as plain.” +</p> + +<p> +“All that goot food wasted,” said old Mr Levinstein. A bad +tream—a bad tream.” +</p> + +<p> +The Members of the Stock Exchange are said to be at all times a noisy lot. But +the noise they made now to express their disgust at the costumes of ancient +Babylon was far louder than their ordinary row. One had to shout before one +could hear oneself speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I only wish,” said the clerk who thought it was conjuring—he +was quite close to the children and they trembled, because they knew that +whatever he wished would come true. “I only wish we knew who’d done +it.” +</p> + +<p> +And, of course, instantly they did know, and they pressed round the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“Scandalous! Shameful! Ought to be put down by law. Give her in charge. +Fetch the police,” two or three voices shouted at once. +</p> + +<p> +The Queen recoiled. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” she asked. “They sound like caged +lions—lions by the thousand. What is it that they say?” +</p> + +<p> +“They say ‘Police!’,” said Cyril briefly. “I knew +they would sooner or later. And I don’t blame them, mind you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish my guards were here!” cried the Queen. The exhausted +Psammead was panting and trembling, but the Queen’s guards in red and +green garments, and brass and iron gear, choked Throgmorton Street, and bared +weapons flashed round the Queen. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m mad,” said a Mr Rosenbaum; “dat’s what it +is—mad!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a judgement on you, Rosy,” said his partner. “I +always said you were too hard in that matter of Flowerdew. It’s a +judgement, and I’m in it too.” +</p> + +<p> +The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from the gleaming +blades, the mailed figures, the hard, cruel Eastern faces. But Throgmorton +Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for them to get away as quickly +as they wished. +</p> + +<p> +“Kill them,” cried the Queen. “Kill the dogs!” +</p> + +<p> +The guards obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> all a dream,” cried Mr Levinstein, cowering in a +doorway behind his clerk. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t,” said the clerk. “It isn’t. Oh, my +good gracious! those foreign brutes are killing everybody. Henry Hirsh is down +now, and Prentice is cut in two—oh, Lord! and Huth, and there goes Lionel +Cohen with his head off, and Guy Nickalls has lost his head now. A dream? I +wish to goodness it was all a dream.” +</p> + +<p> +And, of course, instantly it was! The entire Stock Exchange rubbed its eyes and +went back to close, to over, and either side of seven-eights, and Trunks, and +Kaffirs, and Steel Common, and Contangoes, and Backwardations, Double Options, +and all the interesting subjects concerning which they talk in the Street +without ceasing. +</p> + +<p> +No one said a word about it to anyone else. I think I have explained before +that business men do not like it to be known that they have been dreaming in +business hours. Especially mad dreams including such dreadful things as hungry +people getting dinners, and the destruction of the Stock Exchange. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The children were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street, pale and +trembling. The Psammead crawled out of the embroidered bag, and lay flat on the +table, its leg stretched out, looking more like a dead hare than anything else. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Goodness that’s over,” said Anthea, drawing a deep +breath. +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t come back, will she?” asked Jane tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Cyril. “She’s thousands of years ago. But we +spent a whole precious pound on her. It’ll take all our pocket-money for +ages to pay that back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if it was <i>all</i> a dream,” said Robert. “The wish +said <i>all</i> a dream, you know, Panther; you cut up and ask if he lent you +anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said Anthea politely, following the sound of +her knock into the presence of the learned gentleman, “I’m +<i>so</i> sorry to trouble you, but <i>did</i> you lend me a pound +today?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said he, looking kindly at her through his spectacles. +“But it’s extraordinary that you should ask me, for I dozed for a +few moments this afternoon, a thing I very rarely do, and I dreamed quite +distinctly that you brought me a ring that you said belonged to the Queen of +Babylon, and that I lent you a sovereign and that you left one of the +Queen’s rings here. The ring was a magnificent specimen.” He +sighed. “I wish it hadn’t been a dream,” he said smiling. He +was really learning to smile quite nicely. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea could not be too thankful that the Psammead was not there to grant his +wish. +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /> +ATLANTIS</h2> + +<p> +You will understand that the adventure of the Babylonian queen in London was +the only one that had occupied any time at all. But the children’s time +was very fully taken up by talking over all the wonderful things seen and done +in the Past, where, by the power of the Amulet, they seemed to spend hours and +hours, only to find when they got back to London that the whole thing had been +briefer than a lightning flash. +</p> + +<p> +They talked of the Past at their meals, in their walks, in the dining-room, in +the first-floor drawing-room, but most of all on the stairs. It was an old +house; it had once been a fashionable one, and was a fine one still. The +banister rails of the stairs were excellent for sliding down, and in the +corners of the landings were big alcoves that had once held graceful statues, +and now quite often held the graceful forms of Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane. +</p> + +<p> +One day Cyril and Robert in tight white underclothing had spent a pleasant hour +in reproducing the attitudes of statues seen either in the British Museum, or +in Father’s big photograph book. But the show ended abruptly because +Robert wanted to be the Venus of Milo, and for this purpose pulled at the sheet +which served for drapery at the very moment when Cyril, looking really quite +like the Discobolos—with a gold and white saucer for the disc—was +standing on one foot, and under that one foot was the sheet. +</p> + +<p> +Of course the Discobolos and his disc and the would-be Venus came down +together, and everyone was a good deal hurt, especially the saucer, which would +never be the same again, however neatly one might join its uneven bits with +Seccotine or the white of an egg. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’re satisfied,” said Cyril, holding his head where +a large lump was rising. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite, thanks,” said Robert bitterly. His thumb had caught in the +banisters and bent itself back almost to breaking point. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>am</i> so sorry, poor, dear Squirrel,” said Anthea; +“and you were looking so lovely. I’ll get a wet rag. Bobs, go and +hold your hand under the hot-water tap. It’s what ballet girls do with +their legs when they hurt them. I saw it in a book.” +</p> + +<p> +“What book?” said Robert disagreeably. But he went. +</p> + +<p> +When he came back Cyril’s head had been bandaged by his sisters, and he +had been brought to the state of mind where he was able reluctantly to admit +that he supposed Robert hadn’t done it on purpose. +</p> + +<p> +Robert replying with equal suavity, Anthea hastened to lead the talk away from +the accident. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you don’t feel like going anywhere through the +Amulet,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Egypt!” said Jane promptly. “I want to see the pussy +cats.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not me—too hot,” said Cyril. “It’s about as much +as I can stand here—let alone Egypt.” It was indeed, hot, even on +the second landing, which was the coolest place in the house. +“Let’s go to the North Pole.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose the Amulet was ever there—and we might get +our fingers frost-bitten so that we could never hold it up to get home again. +No thanks,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said Jane, “let’s get the Psammead and ask its +advice. It will like us asking, even if we don’t take it.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead was brought up in its green silk embroidered bag, but before it +could be asked anything the door of the learned gentleman’s room opened +and the voice of the visitor who had been lunching with him was heard on the +stairs. He seemed to be speaking with the door handle in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You see a doctor, old boy,” he said; “all that about +thought-transference is just simply twaddle. You’ve been over-working. +Take a holiday. Go to Dieppe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather go to Babylon,” said the learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d go to Atlantis some time, while we’re about it, +so as to give me some tips for my <i>Nineteenth Century</i> article when you +come home.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could,” said the voice of the learned gentleman. + +</p> + +<p> +“Goodbye. Take care of yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +The door was banged, and the visitor came smiling down the stairs—a +stout, prosperous, big man. The children had to get up to let him pass. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Kiddies,” he said, glancing at the bandages on the head of +Cyril and the hand of Robert, “been in the wars?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right,” said Cyril. “I say, what was that +Atlantic place you wanted him to go to? We couldn’t help hearing you +talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“You talk so <i>very</i> loud, you see,” said Jane soothingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Atlantis,” said the visitor, “the lost Atlantis, garden of +the Hesperides. Great continent—disappeared in the sea. You can read +about it in Plato.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Cyril doubtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Were there any Amulets there?” asked Anthea, made anxious by a +sudden thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Hundreds, I should think. So <i>he’s</i> been talking to +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, often. He’s very kind to us. We like him awfully.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what he wants is a holiday; you persuade him to take one. What he +wants is a change of scene. You see, his head is crusted so thickly inside with +knowledge about Egypt and Assyria and things that you can’t hammer +anything into it unless you keep hard at it all day long for days and days. And +I haven’t time. But you live in the house. You can hammer almost +incessantly. Just try your hands, will you? Right. So long!” +</p> + +<p> +He went down the stairs three at a time, and Jane remarked that he was a nice +man, and she thought he had little girls of his own. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to have them to play with,” she added pensively. +</p> + +<p> +The three elder ones exchanged glances. Cyril nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“All right. <i>Let’s</i> go to Atlantis,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go to Atlantis and take the learned gentleman with +us,” said Anthea; “he’ll think it’s a dream, +afterwards, but it’ll certainly be a change of scene.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not take him to nice Egypt?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Too hot,” said Cyril shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Or Babylon, where he wants to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had enough of Babylon,” said Robert, “at least +for the present. And so have the others. I don’t know why,” he +added, forestalling the question on Jane’s lips, “but somehow we +have. Squirrel, let’s take off these beastly bandages and get into +flannels. We can’t go in our unders.” +</p> + +<p> +“He <i>wished</i> to go to Atlantis, so he’s got to go some time; +and he might as well go with us,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +This was how it was that the learned gentleman, permitting himself a few +moments of relaxation in his chair, after the fatigue of listening to opinions +(about Atlantis and many other things) with which he did not at all agree, +opened his eyes to find his four young friends standing in front of him in a +row. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you come,” said Anthea, “to Atlantis with us?” +</p> + +<p> +“To know that you are dreaming shows that the dream is nearly at an +end,” he told himself; “or perhaps it’s only a game, like +‘How many miles to Babylon?’” +</p> + +<p> +So he said aloud: “Thank you very much, but I have only a quarter of an +hour to spare.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t take any time,” said Cyril; “time is only a +mode of thought, you know, and you’ve got to go some time, so why not +with us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said the learned gentleman, now quite certain that he +was dreaming. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea held out her soft, pink hand. He took it. She pulled him gently to his +feet. Jane held up the Amulet. +</p> + +<p> +“To just outside Atlantis,” said Cyril, and Jane said the Name of +Power. +</p> + +<p> +“You owl!” said Robert, “it’s an island. Outside an +island’s all water.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t go. I <i>won’t</i>,” said the Psammead, +kicking and struggling in its bag. +</p> + +<p> +But already the Amulet had grown to a great arch. Cyril pushed the learned +gentleman, as undoubtedly the first-born, through the arch—not into +water, but on to a wooden floor, out of doors. The others followed. The Amulet +grew smaller again, and there they all were, standing on the deck of a ship +whose sailors were busy making her fast with chains to rings on a white +quay-side. The rings and the chains were of a metal that shone red-yellow like +gold. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone on the ship seemed too busy at first to notice the group of newcomers +from Fitzroy Street. Those who seemed to be officers were shouting orders to +the men. +</p> + +<p> +They stood and looked across the wide quay to the town that rose beyond it. +What they saw was the most beautiful sight any of them had ever seen—or +ever dreamed of. +</p> + +<p> +The blue sea sparkled in soft sunlight; little white-capped waves broke softly +against the marble breakwaters that guarded the shipping of a great city from +the wilderness of winter winds and seas. The quay was of marble, white and +sparkling with a veining bright as gold. The city was of marble, red and white. +The greater buildings that seemed to be temples and palaces were roofed with +what looked like gold and silver, but most of the roofs were of copper that +glowed golden-red on the houses on the hills among which the city stood, and +shaded into marvellous tints of green and blue and purple where they had been +touched by the salt sea spray and the fumes of the dyeing and smelting works of +the lower town. +</p> + +<p> +Broad and magnificent flights of marble stairs led up from the quay to a sort +of terrace that seemed to run along for miles, and beyond rose the town built +on a hill. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman drew a long breath. “Wonderful!” he said, +“wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Mr—what’s your name,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“He means,” said Anthea, with gentle politeness, “that we +never can remember your name. I know it’s Mr De Something.” +</p> + +<p> +“When I was your age I was called Jimmy,” he said timidly. +“Would you mind? I should feel more at home in a dream like this if +I—Anything that made me seem more like one of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you—Jimmy,” said Anthea with an effort. It seemed such +a cheek to be saying Jimmy to a grown-up man. “Jimmy, <i>dear</i>,” +she added, with no effort at all. Jimmy smiled and looked pleased. +</p> + +<p> +But now the ship was made fast, and the Captain had time to notice other +things. He came towards them, and he was dressed in the best of all possible +dresses for the seafaring life. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing here?” he asked rather fiercely. “Do you +come to bless or to curse?” +</p> + +<p> +“To bless, of course,” said Cyril. “I’m sorry if it +annoys you, but we’re here by magic. We come from the land of the +sun-rising,” he went on explanatorily. +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said the Captain; no one had expected that he would. +“I didn’t notice at first, but of course I hope you’re a good +omen. It’s needed. And this,” he pointed to the learned gentleman, +“your slave, I presume?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Anthea; “he’s a very great man. A +sage, don’t they call it? And we want to see all your beautiful city, and +your temples and things, and then we shall go back, and he will tell his +friend, and his friend will write a book about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What,” asked the Captain, fingering a rope, “is a +book?” +</p> + +<p> +“A record—something written, or,” she added hastily, +remembering the Babylonian writing, “or engraved.” +</p> + +<p> +Some sudden impulse of confidence made Jane pluck the Amulet from the neck of +her frock. +</p> + +<p> +“Like this,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The Captain looked at it curiously, but, the other three were relieved to +notice, without any of that overwhelming interest which the mere name of it had +roused in Egypt and Babylon. +</p> + +<p> +“The stone is of our country,” he said; “and that which is +engraved on it, it is like our writing, but I cannot read it. What is the name +of your sage?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ji-jimmy,” said Anthea hesitatingly. +</p> + +<p> +The Captain repeated, “Ji-jimmy. Will you land?” he added. +“And shall I lead you to the Kings?” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said Robert, “does your King hate +strangers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Our Kings are ten,” said the Captain, “and the Royal line, +unbroken from Poseidon, the father of us all, has the noble tradition to do +honour to strangers if they come in peace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then lead on, please,” said Robert, “though I <i>should</i> +like to see all over your beautiful ship, and sail about in her.” +</p> + +<p> +“That shall be later,” said the Captain; “just now +we’re afraid of a storm—do you notice that odd rumbling?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s nothing, master,” said an old sailor who stood near; +“it’s the pilchards coming in, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too loud,” said the Captain. +</p> + +<p> +There was a rather anxious pause; then the Captain stepped on to the quay, and +the others followed him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do talk to him—Jimmy,” said Anthea as they went; “you +can find out all sorts of things for your friend’s book.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please excuse me,” he said earnestly. “If I talk I shall +wake up; and besides, I can’t understand what he says.” +</p> + +<p> +No one else could think of anything to say, so that it was in complete silence +that they followed the Captain up the marble steps and through the streets of +the town. There were streets and shops and houses and markets. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just like Babylon,” whispered Jane, “only +everything’s perfectly different.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a great comfort the ten Kings have been properly brought +up—to be kind to strangers,” Anthea whispered to Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, “no deepest dungeons here.” +</p> + +<p> +There were no horses or chariots in the street, but there were handcarts and +low trolleys running on thick log-wheels, and porters carrying packets on their +heads, and a good many of the people were riding on what looked like elephants, +only the great beasts were hairy, and they had not that mild expression we are +accustomed to meet on the faces of the elephants at the Zoo. +</p> + +<p> +“Mammoths!” murmured the learned gentleman, and stumbled over a +loose stone. +</p> + +<p> +The people in the streets kept crowding round them as they went along, but the +Captain always dispersed the crowd before it grew uncomfortably thick by +saying— +</p> + +<p> +“Children of the Sun God and their High Priest—come to bless the +City.” +</p> + +<p> +And then the people would draw back with a low murmur that sounded like a +suppressed cheer. +</p> + +<p> +Many of the buildings were covered with gold, but the gold on the bigger +buildings was of a different colour, and they had sorts of steeples of +burnished silver rising above them. +</p> + +<p> +“Are all these houses real gold?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“The temples are covered with gold, of course,” answered the +Captain, “but the houses are only oricalchum. It’s not quite so +expensive.” +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman, now very pale, stumbled along in a dazed way, repeating: +</p> + +<p> +“Oricalchum—oricalchum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be frightened,” said Anthea; “we can get home in +a minute, just by holding up the charm. Would you rather go back now? We could +easily come some other day without you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, no,” he pleaded fervently; “let the dream go on. +Please, please do.” +</p> + +<p> +“The High Ji-jimmy is perhaps weary with his magic journey,” said +the Captain, noticing the blundering walk of the learned gentleman; “and +we are yet very far from the Great Temple, where today the Kings make +sacrifice.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped at the gate of a great enclosure. It seemed to be a sort of park, +for trees showed high above its brazen wall. +</p> + +<p> +The party waited, and almost at once the Captain came back with one of the +hairy elephants and begged them to mount. +</p> + +<p> +This they did. +</p> + +<p> +It was a glorious ride. The elephant at the Zoo—to ride on him is also +glorious, but he goes such a very little way, and then he goes back again, +which is always dull. But this great hairy beast went on and on and on along +streets and through squares and gardens. It was a glorious city; almost +everything was built of marble, red, or white, or black. Every now and then the +party crossed a bridge. +</p> + +<p> +It was not till they had climbed to the hill which is the centre of the town +that they saw that the whole city was divided into twenty circles, alternately +land and water, and over each of the water circles were the bridges by which +they had come. +</p> + +<p> +And now they were in a great square. A vast building filled up one side of it; +it was overlaid with gold, and had a dome of silver. The rest of the buildings +round the square were of oricalchum. And it looked more splendid than you can +possibly imagine, standing up bold and shining in the sunlight. +</p> + +<p> +“You would like a bath,” said the Captain, as the hairy elephant +went clumsily down on his knees. “It’s customary, you know, before +entering the Presence. We have baths for men, women, horses, and cattle. The +High Class Baths are here. Our Father Poseidon gave us a spring of hot water +and one of cold.” +</p> + +<p> +The children had never before bathed in baths of gold. +</p> + +<p> +“It feels very splendid,” said Cyril, splashing. +</p> + +<p> +“At least, of course, it’s not gold; it’s +or—what’s its name,” said Robert. “Hand over that +towel.” +</p> + +<p> +The bathing hall had several great pools sunk below the level of the floor; one +went down to them by steps. +</p> + +<p> +“Jimmy,” said Anthea timidly, when, very clean and boiled-looking, +they all met in the flowery courtyard of the Public, “don’t you +think all this seems much more like <i>now</i> than Babylon or Egypt—? +Oh, I forgot, you’ve never been there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know a little of those nations, however,” said he, “and I +quite agree with you. A most discerning remark—my dear,” he added +awkwardly; “this city certainly seems to indicate a far higher level of +civilization than the Egyptian or Babylonish, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Follow me,” said the Captain. “Now, boys, get out of the +way.” He pushed through a little crowd of boys who were playing with +dried chestnuts fastened to a string. +</p> + +<p> +“Ginger!” remarked Robert, “they’re playing conkers, +just like the kids in Kentish Town Road!” +</p> + +<p> +They could see now that three walls surrounded the island on which they were. +The outermost wall was of brass, the Captain told them; the next, which looked +like silver, was covered with tin; and the innermost one was of oricalchum. +</p> + +<p> +And right in the middle was a wall of gold, with golden towers and gates. +</p> + +<p> +“Behold the Temples of Poseidon,” said the Captain. “It is +not lawful for me to enter. I will await your return here.” +</p> + +<p> +He told them what they ought to say, and the five people from Fitzroy Street +took hands and went forward. The golden gates slowly opened. +</p> + +<p> +“We are the children of the Sun,” said Cyril, as he had been told, +“and our High Priest, at least that’s what the Captain calls him. +We have a different name for him at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is his name?” asked a white-robed man who stood in the +doorway with his arms extended. +</p> + +<p> +“Ji-jimmy,” replied Cyril, and he hesitated as Anthea had done. It +really did seem to be taking a great liberty with so learned a gentleman. +“And we have come to speak with your Kings in the Temple of +Poseidon—does that word sound right?” he whispered anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite,” said the learned gentleman. “It’s very odd I +can understand what you say to them, but not what they say to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Queen of Babylon found that too,” said Cyril; +“it’s part of the magic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a dream!” said the learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +The white-robed priest had been joined by others, and all were bowing low. +</p> + +<p> +“Enter,” he said, “enter, Children of the Sun, with your High +Ji-jimmy.” +</p> + +<p> +In an inner courtyard stood the Temple—all of silver, with gold pinnacles +and doors, and twenty enormous statues in bright gold of men and women. Also an +immense pillar of the other precious yellow metal. +</p> + +<p> +They went through the doors, and the priest led them up a stair into a gallery +from which they could look down on to the glorious place. +</p> + +<p> +“The ten Kings are even now choosing the bull. It is not lawful for me to +behold,” said the priest, and fell face downward on the floor outside the +gallery. The children looked down. +</p> + +<p> +The roof was of ivory adorned with the three precious metals, and the walls +were lined with the favourite oricalchum. +</p> + +<p> +At the far end of the Temple was a statue group, the like of which no one +living has ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +It was of gold, and the head of the chief figure reached to the roof. That +figure was Poseidon, the Father of the City. He stood in a great chariot drawn +by six enormous horses, and round about it were a hundred mermaids riding on +dolphins. +</p> + +<p> +Ten men, splendidly dressed and armed only with sticks and ropes, were trying +to capture one of some fifteen bulls who ran this way and that about the floor +of the Temple. The children held their breath, for the bulls looked dangerous, +and the great horned heads were swinging more and more wildly. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea did not like looking at the bulls. She looked about the gallery, and +noticed that another staircase led up from it to a still higher storey; also +that a door led out into the open air, where there seemed to be a balcony. +</p> + +<p> +So that when a shout went up and Robert whispered, “Got him,” and +she looked down and saw the herd of bulls being driven out of the Temple by +whips, and the ten Kings following, one of them spurring with his stick a black +bull that writhed and fought in the grip of a lasso, she answered the +boy’s agitated, “Now we shan’t see anything more,” +with— +</p> + +<p> +“Yes we can, there’s an outside balcony.” +</p> + +<p> +So they crowded out. +</p> + +<p> +But very soon the girls crept back. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like sacrifices,” Jane said. So she and Anthea went +and talked to the priest, who was no longer lying on his face, but sitting on +the top step mopping his forehead with his robe, for it was a hot day. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a special sacrifice,” he said; “usually +it’s only done on the justice days every five years and six years +alternately. And then they drink the cup of wine with some of the bull’s +blood in it, and swear to judge truly. And they wear the sacred blue robe, and +put out all the Temple fires. But this today is because the City’s so +upset by the odd noises from the sea, and the god inside the big mountain +speaking with his thunder-voice. But all that’s happened so often before. +If anything could make ME uneasy it wouldn’t be <i>that</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“What would it be?” asked Jane kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be the Lemmings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are they—enemies?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re a sort of rat; and every year they come swimming over from +the country that no man knows, and stay here awhile, and then swim away. This +year they haven’t come. You know rats won’t stay on a ship +that’s going to be wrecked. If anything horrible were going to happen to +us, it’s my belief those Lemmings would know; and that may be why +they’ve fought shy of us.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you call this country?” asked the Psammead, suddenly +putting its head out of its bag. +</p> + +<p> +“Atlantis,” said the priest. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I advise you to get on to the highest ground you can find. I +remember hearing something about a flood here. Look here, you”—it +turned to Anthea; “let’s get home. The prospect’s too wet for +my whiskers.” +</p> + +<p> +The girls obediently went to find their brothers, who were leaning on the +balcony railings. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the learned gentleman?” asked Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“There he is—below,” said the priest, who had come with them. +“Your High Ji-jimmy is with the Kings.” +</p> + +<p> +The ten Kings were no longer alone. The learned gentleman—no one had +noticed how he got there—stood with them on the steps of an altar, on +which lay the dead body of the black bull. All the rest of the courtyard was +thick with people, seemingly of all classes, and all were shouting, “The +sea—the sea!” +</p> + +<p> +“Be calm,” said the most kingly of the Kings, he who had lassoed +the bull. “Our town is strong against the thunders of the sea and of the +sky!” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go home,” whined the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t go without <i>him</i>,” said Anthea firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Jimmy,” she called, “Jimmy!” and waved to him. He +heard her, and began to come towards her through the crowd. +</p> + +<p> +They could see from the balcony the sea-captain edging his way out from among +the people. And his face was dead white, like paper. +</p> + +<p> +“To the hills!” he cried in a loud and terrible voice. And above +his voice came another voice, louder, more terrible—the voice of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +The girls looked seaward. +</p> + +<p> +Across the smooth distance of the sea something huge and black rolled towards +the town. It was a wave, but a wave a hundred feet in height, a wave that +looked like a mountain—a wave rising higher and higher till suddenly it +seemed to break in two—one half of it rushed out to sea again; the +other— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried Anthea, “the town—the poor people!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all thousands of years ago, really,” said Robert but +his voice trembled. They hid their eyes for a moment. They could not bear to +look down, for the wave had broken on the face of the town, sweeping over the +quays and docks, overwhelming the great storehouses and factories, tearing +gigantic stones from forts and bridges, and using them as battering rams +against the temples. Great ships were swept over the roofs of the houses and +dashed down halfway up the hill among ruined gardens and broken buildings. The +water ground brown fishing-boats to powder on the golden roofs of Palaces. +</p> + +<p> +Then the wave swept back towards the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go home,” cried the Psammead fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, yes!” said Jane, and the boys were ready—but the +learned gentleman had not come. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly they heard him dash up to the inner gallery, crying— +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>must</i> see the end of the dream.” He rushed up the higher +flight. The others followed him. They found themselves in a sort of +turret—roofed, but open to the air at the sides. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman was leaning on the parapet, and as they rejoined him the +vast wave rushed back on the town. This time it rose higher—destroyed +more. +</p> + +<p> +“Come home,” cried the Psammead; “<i>that’s</i> the +<i>last</i>, I know it is! That’s the last—over there.” It +pointed with a claw that trembled. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come!” cried Jane, holding up the Amulet. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>will see</i> the end of the dream,” cried the learned +gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll never see anything else if you do,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>Jimmy!</i>” appealed Anthea. “I’ll <i>never</i> +bring you out again!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll never have the chance if you don’t go soon,” +said the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>will</i> see the end of the dream,” said the learned +gentleman obstinately. +</p> + +<p> +The hills around were black with people fleeing from the villages to the +mountains. And even as they fled thin smoke broke from the great white peak, +and then a faint flash of flame. Then the volcano began to throw up its +mysterious fiery inside parts. The earth trembled; ashes and sulphur showered +down; a rain of fine pumice-stone fell like snow on all the dry land. The +elephants from the forest rushed up towards the peaks; great lizards thirty +yards long broke from the mountain pools and rushed down towards the sea. The +snows melted and rushed down, first in avalanches, then in roaring torrents. +Great rocks cast up by the volcano fell splashing in the sea miles away. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, this is horrible!” cried Anthea. “Come home, come +home!” +</p> + +<p> +“The end of the dream,” gasped the learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold up the Amulet,” cried the Psammead suddenly. The place where +they stood was now crowded with men and women, and the children were strained +tight against the parapet. The turret rocked and swayed; the wave had reached +the golden wall. +</p> + +<p> +Jane held up the Amulet. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” cried the Psammead, “say the word!” +</p> + +<p> +And as Jane said it the Psammead leaped from its bag and bit the hand of the +learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +At the same moment the boys pushed him through the arch and all followed him. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to look back, and through the arch he saw nothing but a waste of +waters, with above it the peak of the terrible mountain with fire raging from +it. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He staggered back to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“What a ghastly dream!” he gasped. “Oh, you’re here, +my—er—dears. Can I do anything for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve hurt your hand,” said Anthea gently; “let me +bind it up.” +</p> + +<p> +The hand was indeed bleeding rather badly. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead had crept back to its bag. All the children were very white. +</p> + +<p> +“Never again,” said the Psammead later on, “will I go into +the Past with a grown-up person! I will say for you four, you do do as +you’re told.” +</p> + +<p> +“We didn’t even find the Amulet,” said Anthea later still. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you didn’t; it wasn’t there. Only the stone it was +made of was there. It fell on to a ship miles away that managed to escape and +got to Egypt. <i>I</i> could have told you that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you had,” said Anthea, and her voice was still rather +shaky. “Why didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You never asked me,” said the Psammead very sulkily. +“I’m not the sort of chap to go shoving my oar in where it’s +not wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Ji-jimmy’s friend will have something worth having to put in +his article now,” said Cyril very much later indeed. +</p> + +<p> +“Not he,” said Robert sleepily. “The learned Ji-jimmy will +think it’s a dream, and it’s ten to one he never tells the other +chap a word about it at all.” +</p> + +<p> +Robert was quite right on both points. The learned gentleman did. And he never +did. +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /> +THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL AND JULIUS CAESAR</h2> + +<p> +A great city swept away by the sea, a beautiful country devastated by an active +volcano—these are not the sort of things you see every day of the week. +And when you do see them, no matter how many other wonders you may have seen in +your time, such sights are rather apt to take your breath away. Atlantis had +certainly this effect on the breaths of Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane. +</p> + +<p> +They remained in a breathless state for some days. The learned gentleman seemed +as breathless as anyone; he spent a good deal of what little breath he had in +telling Anthea about a wonderful dream he had. “You would hardly +believe,” he said, “that anyone <i>could</i> have such a detailed +vision.” +</p> + +<p> +But Anthea could believe it, she said, quite easily. +</p> + +<p> +He had ceased to talk about thought-transference. He had now seen too many +wonders to believe that. +</p> + +<p> +In consequence of their breathless condition none of the children suggested any +new excursions through the Amulet. Robert voiced the mood of the others when he +said that they were “fed up” with Amulet for a bit. They +undoubtedly were. +</p> + +<p> +As for the Psammead, it went to sand and stayed there, worn out by the terror +of the flood and the violent exercise it had had to take in obedience to the +inconsiderate wishes of the learned gentleman and the Babylonian queen. +</p> + +<p> +The children let it sleep. The danger of taking it about among strange people +who might at any moment utter undesirable wishes was becoming more and more +plain. +</p> + +<p> +And there are pleasant things to be done in London without any aid from Amulets +or Psammeads. You can, for instance visit the Tower of London, the Houses of +Parliament, the National Gallery, the Zoological Gardens, the various Parks, +the Museums at South Kensington, Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition of Waxworks, +or the Botanical Gardens at Kew. You can go to Kew by river steamer—and +this is the way that the children would have gone if they had gone at all. Only +they never did, because it was when they were discussing the arrangements for +the journey, and what they should take with them to eat and how much of it, and +what the whole thing would cost, that the adventure of the Little Black Girl +began to happen. +</p> + +<p> +The children were sitting on a seat in St James’s Park. They had been +watching the pelican repulsing with careful dignity the advances of the +seagulls who are always so anxious to play games with it. The pelican thinks, +very properly, that it hasn’t the figure for games, so it spends most of +its time pretending that that is not the reason why it won’t play. +</p> + +<p> +The breathlessness caused by Atlantis was wearing off a little. Cyril, who +always wanted to understand all about everything, was turning things over in +his mind. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not; I’m only thinking,” he answered when Robert +asked him what he was so grumpy about. “I’ll tell you when +I’ve thought it all out.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it’s about the Amulet I don’t want to hear it,” +said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody asked you to,” retorted Cyril mildly, “and I +haven’t finished my inside thinking about it yet. Let’s go to Kew +in the meantime.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather go in a steamer,” said Robert; and the girls +laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” said Cyril, “<i>be</i> funny. I +would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he was, rather,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t think, Squirrel, if it hurts you so,” said Robert +kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shut up,” said Cyril, “or else talk about Kew.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to see the palms there,” said Anthea hastily, “to see +if they’re anything like the ones on the island where we united the Cook +and the Burglar by the Reverend Half-Curate.” +</p> + +<p> +All disagreeableness was swept away in a pleasant tide of recollections, and +“Do you remember...?” they said. “Have you +forgotten...?” +</p> + +<p> +“My hat!” remarked Cyril pensively, as the flood of reminiscence +ebbed a little; “we have had some times.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have that,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let’s have any more,” said Jane anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I was thinking about,” Cyril replied; and just +then they heard the Little Black Girl sniff. She was quite close to them. +</p> + +<p> +She was not really a little black girl. She was shabby and not very clean, and +she had been crying so much that you could hardly see, through the narrow chink +between her swollen lids, how very blue her eyes were. It was her dress that +was black, and it was too big and too long for her, and she wore a speckled +black-ribboned sailor hat that would have fitted a much bigger head than her +little flaxen one. And she stood looking at the children and sniffing. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear!” said Anthea, jumping up. “Whatever is the +matter?” +</p> + +<p> +She put her hand on the little girl’s arm. It was rudely shaken off. +</p> + +<p> +“You leave me be,” said the little girl. “I ain’t doing +nothing to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is it?” Anthea asked. “Has someone been hurting +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that to you?” said the little girl fiercely. +“<i>You’re</i> all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come away,” said Robert, pulling at Anthea’s sleeve. +“She’s a nasty, rude little kid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said Anthea. “She’s only dreadfully unhappy. +What is it?” she asked again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>you’re</i> all right,” the child repeated; +“<i>you</i> ain’t agoin’ to the Union.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t we take you home?” said Anthea; and Jane added, +“Where does your mother live?” +</p> + +<p> +“She don’t live nowheres—she’s dead—so +now!” said the little girl fiercely, in tones of miserable triumph. Then +she opened her swollen eyes widely, stamped her foot in fury, and ran away. She +ran no further than to the next bench, flung herself down there and began to +cry without even trying not to. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea, quite at once, went to the little girl and put her arms as tight as she +could round the hunched-up black figure. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t cry so, dear, don’t, don’t!” she +whispered under the brim of the large sailor hat, now very crooked indeed. +“Tell Anthea all about it; Anthea’lll help you. There, there, dear, +don’t cry.” +</p> + +<p> +The others stood at a distance. One or two passers-by stared curiously. +</p> + +<p> +The child was now only crying part of the time; the rest of the time she seemed +to be talking to Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Anthea beckoned Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s horrible!” she said in a furious whisper, “her +father was a carpenter and he was a steady man, and never touched a drop except +on a Saturday, and he came up to London for work, and there wasn’t any, +and then he died; and her name is Imogen, and she’s nine come next +November. And now her mother’s dead, and she’s to stay tonight with +Mrs Shrobsall—that’s a landlady that’s been kind—and +tomorrow the Relieving Officer is coming for her, and she’s going into +the Union; that means the Workhouse. It’s too terrible. What can we +do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s ask the learned gentleman,” said Jane brightly. +</p> + +<p> +And as no one else could think of anything better the whole party walked back +to Fitzroy Street as fast as it could, the little girl holding tight to +Anthea’s hand and now not crying any more, only sniffing gently. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman looked up from his writing with the smile that had grown +much easier to him than it used to be. They were quite at home in his room now; +it really seemed to welcome them. Even the mummy-case appeared to smile as if +in its distant superior ancient Egyptian way it were rather pleased to see them +than not. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea sat on the stairs with Imogen, who was nine come next November, while +the others went in and explained the difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman listened with grave attention. +</p> + +<p> +“It really does seem rather rough luck,” Cyril concluded, +“because I’ve often heard about rich people who wanted children +most awfully—though I know <i>I</i> never should—but they do. There +must be somebody who’d be glad to have her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gipsies are awfully fond of children,” Robert hopefully said. +“They’re always stealing them. Perhaps they’d have +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s quite a nice little girl really,” Jane added; +“she was only rude at first because we looked jolly and happy, and she +wasn’t. You understand that, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said he, absently fingering a little blue image from Egypt. +“I understand that very well. As you say, there must be some home where +she would be welcome.” He scowled thoughtfully at the little blue image. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea outside thought the explanation was taking a very long time. She was so +busy trying to cheer and comfort the little black girl that she never noticed +the Psammead who, roused from sleep by her voice, had shaken itself free of +sand, and was coming crookedly up the stairs. It was close to her before she +saw it. She picked it up and settled it in her lap. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” asked the black child. “Is it a cat or a +organ-monkey, or what?” +</p> + +<p> +And then Anthea heard the learned gentleman say— +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I wish we could find a home where they would be glad to have +her,” and instantly she felt the Psammead begin to blow itself out as it +sat on her lap. +</p> + +<p> +She jumped up lifting the Psammead in her skirt, and holding Imogen by the +hand, rushed into the learned gentleman’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“At least let’s keep together,” she cried. “All hold +hands—quick!” +</p> + +<p> +The circle was like that formed for the Mulberry Bush or Ring-o’-Roses. +And Anthea was only able to take part in it by holding in her teeth the hem of +her frock which, thus supported, formed a bag to hold the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it a game?” asked the learned gentleman feebly. No one +answered. +</p> + +<p> +There was a moment of suspense; then came that curious upside-down, inside-out +sensation which one almost always feels when transported from one place to +another by magic. Also there was that dizzy dimness of sight which comes on +these occasions. +</p> + +<p> +The mist cleared, the upside-down, inside-out sensation subsided, and there +stood the six in a ring, as before, only their twelve feet, instead of standing +on the carpet of the learned gentleman’s room, stood on green grass. +Above them, instead of the dusky ceiling of the Fitzroy Street floor, was a +pale blue sky. And where the walls had been and the painted mummy-case, were +tall dark green trees, oaks and ashes, and in between the trees and under them +tangled bushes and creeping ivy. There were beech-trees too, but there was +nothing under them but their own dead red drifted leaves, and here and there a +delicate green fern-frond. +</p> + +<p> +And there they stood in a circle still holding hands, as though they were +playing Ring-o’-Roses or the Mulberry Bush. Just six people hand in hand +in a wood. That sounds simple, but then you must remember that they did not +know <i>where</i> the wood was, and what’s more, they didn’t know +<i>when</i> then wood was. There was a curious sort of feeling that made the +learned gentleman say— +</p> + +<p> +“Another dream, dear me!” and made the children almost certain that +they were in a time a very long while ago. As for little Imogen, she said, +“Oh, my!” and kept her mouth very much open indeed. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are we?” Cyril asked the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“In Britain,” said the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“But when?” asked Anthea anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“About the year fifty-five before the year you reckon time from,” +said the Psammead crossly. “Is there anything else you want to +know?” it added, sticking its head out of the bag formed by +Anthea’s blue linen frock, and turning its snail’s eyes to right +and left. “I’ve been here before—it’s very little +changed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but why here?” asked Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Your inconsiderate friend,” the Psammead replied, “wished to +find some home where they would be glad to have that unattractive and immature +female human being whom you have picked up—gracious knows how. In +Megatherium days properly brought-up children didn’t talk to shabby +strangers in parks. Your thoughtless friend wanted a place where someone would +be glad to have this undesirable stranger. And now here you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“I see we are,” said Anthea patiently, looking round on the tall +gloom of the forest. “But why <i>here?</i> Why <i>now?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t suppose anyone would want a child like that in +<i>your</i> times—in <i>your</i> towns?” said the Psammead in +irritated tones. “You’ve got your country into such a mess that +there’s no room for half your children—and no one to want +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not our doing, you know,” said Anthea gently. +</p> + +<p> +“And bringing me here without any waterproof or anything,” said the +Psammead still more crossly, “when everyone knows how damp and foggy +Ancient Britain was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here, take my coat,” said Robert, taking it off. Anthea spread the +coat on the ground and, putting the Psammead on it, folded it round so that +only the eyes and furry ears showed. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” she said comfortingly. “Now if it does begin to look +like rain, I can cover you up in a minute. Now what are we to do?” +</p> + +<p> +The others who had stopped holding hands crowded round to hear the answer to +this question. Imogen whispered in an awed tone— +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t the organ monkey talk neither! I thought it was only +parrots!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” replied the Psammead. “I don’t care what you +do!” And it drew head and ears into the tweed covering of Robert’s +coat. +</p> + +<p> +The others looked at each other. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only a dream,” said the learned gentleman hopefully; +“something is sure to happen if we can prevent ourselves from waking +up.” +</p> + +<p> +And sure enough, something did. +</p> + +<p> +The brooding silence of the dark forest was broken by the laughter of children +and the sound of voices. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go and see,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only a dream,” said the learned gentleman to Jane, who +hung back; “if you don’t go with the tide of a dream—if you +resist—you wake up, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a silly +person’s idea of a path. They went along this in Indian file, the learned +gentleman leading. +</p> + +<p> +Quite soon they came to a large clearing in the forest. There were a number of +houses—huts perhaps you would have called them—with a sort of mud +and wood fence. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like the old Egyptian town,” whispered Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +And it was, rather. +</p> + +<p> +Some children, with no clothes on at all, were playing what looked like +Ring-o’-Roses or Mulberry Bush. That is to say, they were dancing round +in a ring, holding hands. On a grassy bank several women, dressed in blue and +white robes and tunics of beast-skins sat watching the playing children. +</p> + +<p> +The children from Fitzroy Street stood on the fringe of the forest looking at +the games. One woman with long, fair braided hair sat a little apart from the +others, and there was a look in her eyes as she followed the play of the +children that made Anthea feel sad and sorry. +</p> + +<p> +“None of those little girls is her own little girl,” thought +Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +The little black-clad London child pulled at Anthea’s sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“Look,” she said, “that one there—she’s precious +like mother; mother’s “air was somethink lovely, when she “ad +time to comb it out. Mother wouldn’t never a-beat me if she’d lived +’ere—I don’t suppose there’s e’er a public nearer +than Epping, do you, Miss?” +</p> + +<p> +In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the forest. The +sad-eyed woman saw her. She stood up, her thin face lighted up with a radiance +like sunrise, her long, lean arms stretched towards the London child. +</p> + +<p> +“Imogen!” she cried—at least the word was more like that than +any other word—“Imogen!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a moment of great silence; the naked children paused in their play, +the women on the bank stared anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it <i>is</i> mother—it <i>is!</i>” cried +Imogen-from-London, and rushed across the cleared space. She and her mother +clung together—so closely, so strongly that they stood an instant like a +statue carved in stone. +</p> + +<p> +Then the women crowded round. +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> my Imogen!” cried the woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh it is! And she wasn’t eaten by wolves. She’s come back to +me. Tell me, my darling, how did you escape? Where have you been? Who has fed +and clothed you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know nothink,” said Imogen. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor child!” whispered the women who crowded round, “the +terror of the wolves has turned her brain.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you know <i>me?</i>” said the fair-haired woman. +</p> + +<p> +And Imogen, clinging with black-clothed arms to the bare neck, answered— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, mother, I know <i>you</i> right ’nough.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it? What do they say?” the learned gentleman asked +anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“You wished to come where someone wanted the child,” said the +Psammead. “The child says this is her mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can see,” said the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“But is she really? Her child, I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows?” said the Psammead; “but each one fills the empty +place in the other’s heart. It is enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the learned gentleman, “this is a good dream. I +wish the child might stay in the dream.” +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead blew itself out and granted the wish. So Imogen’s future was +assured. She had found someone to want her. +</p> + +<p> +“If only all the children that no one wants,” began the learned +gentleman—but the woman interrupted. She came towards them. +</p> + +<p> +“Welcome, all!” she cried. “I am the Queen, and my child +tells me that you have befriended her; and this I well believe, looking on your +faces. Your garb is strange, but faces I can read. The child is bewitched, I +see that well, but in this she speaks truth. Is it not so?” +</p> + +<p> +The children said it wasn’t worth mentioning. +</p> + +<p> +I wish you could have seen all the honours and kindnesses lavished on the +children and the learned gentleman by those ancient Britons. You would have +thought, to see them, that a child was something to make a fuss about, not a +bit of rubbish to be hustled about the streets and hidden away in the +Workhouse. It wasn’t as grand as the entertainment at Babylon, but +somehow it was more satisfying. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you children have some wonderful influence on me,” said +the learned gentleman. “I never dreamed such dreams before I knew +you.” +</p> + +<p> +It was when they were alone that night under the stars where the Britons had +spread a heap Of dried fern for them to sleep on, that Cyril spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, “we’ve made it all right for Imogen, +and had a jolly good time. I vote we get home again before the fighting +begins.” +</p> + +<p> +“What fighting?” asked Jane sleepily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Julius Caesar, you little goat,” replied her kind brother. +“Don’t you see that if this is the year fifty-five, Julius Caesar +may happen at any moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you liked Caesar,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“So I do—in the history. But that’s different from being +killed by his soldiers.” +</p> + +<p> +“If we saw Caesar we might persuade him not to,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> persuade <i>Caesar</i>,” Robert laughed. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman, before anyone could stop him, said, “I only wish +we could see Caesar some time.” +</p> + +<p> +And, of course, in just the little time the Psammead took to blow itself out +for wish-giving, the five, or six counting the Psammead, found themselves in +Caesar’s camp, just outside Caesar’s tent. And they saw Caesar. The +Psammead must have taken advantage of the loose wording of the learned +gentleman’s wish, for it was not the same time of day as that on which +the wish had been uttered among the dried ferns. It was sunset, and the great +man sat on a chair outside his tent gazing over the sea towards +Britain—everyone knew without being told that it was towards Britain. Two +golden eagles on the top of posts stood on each side of the tent, and on the +flaps of the tent which was very gorgeous to look at were the letters S.P.Q.R. +</p> + +<p> +The great man turned unchanged on the newcomers the august glance that he had +turned on the violet waters of the Channel. Though they had suddenly appeared +out of nothing, Caesar never showed by the faintest movement of an eyelid, by +the least tightening of that firm mouth, that they were not some long expected +embassy. He waved a calm hand towards the sentinels, who sprang weapons in hand +towards the newcomers. +</p> + +<p> +“Back!” he said in a voice that thrilled like music. “Since +when has Caesar feared children and students?” +</p> + +<p> +To the children he seemed to speak in the only language they knew; but the +learned gentleman heard—in rather a strange accent, but quite +intelligibly—the lips of Caesar speaking in the Latin tongue, and in that +tongue, a little stiffly, he answered— +</p> + +<p> +“It is a dream, O Caesar.” +</p> + +<p> +“A dream?” repeated Caesar. “What is a dream?” +</p> + +<p> +“This,” said the learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Not it,” said Cyril, “it’s a sort of magic. We come +out of another time and another place.” +</p> + +<p> +“And we want to ask you not to trouble about conquering Britain,” +said Anthea; “it’s a poor little place, not worth bothering +about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you from Britain?” the General asked. “Your clothes are +uncouth, but well woven, and your hair is short as the hair of Roman citizens, +not long like the hair of barbarians, yet such I deem you to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re not,” said Jane with angry eagerness; +“we’re not barbarians at all. We come from the country where the +sun never sets, and we’ve read about you in books; and our +country’s full of fine things—St Paul’s, and the Tower of +London, and Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition, and—” +</p> + +<p> +Then the others stopped her. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Robert in a bitter undertone. +</p> + +<p> +Caesar looked at the children a moment in silence. Then he called a soldier and +spoke with him apart. Then he said aloud— +</p> + +<p> +“You three elder children may go where you will within the camp. Few +children are privileged to see the camp of Caesar. The student and the smaller +girl-child will remain here with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Nobody liked this; but when Caesar said a thing that thing was so, and there +was an end to it. So the three went. +</p> + +<p> +Left alone with Jane and the learned gentleman, the great Roman found it easy +enough to turn them inside out. But it was not easy, even for him, to make head +or tail of the insides of their minds when he had got at them. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman insisted that the whole thing was a dream, and refused to +talk much, on the ground that if he did he would wake up. +</p> + +<p> +Jane, closely questioned, was full of information about railways, electric +lights, balloons, men-of-war, cannons, and dynamite. +</p> + +<p> +“And do they fight with swords?” asked the General. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, swords and guns and cannons.” +</p> + +<p> +Caesar wanted to know what guns were. +</p> + +<p> +“You fire them,” said Jane, “and they go bang, and people +fall down dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what are guns like?” +</p> + +<p> +Jane found them hard to describe. +</p> + +<p> +“But Robert has a toy one in his pocket,” she said. So the others +were recalled. +</p> + +<p> +The boys explained the pistol to Caesar very fully, and he looked at it with +the greatest interest. It was a two-shilling pistol, the one that had done such +good service in the old Egyptian village. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall cause guns to be made,” said Caesar, “and you will +be detained till I know whether you have spoken the truth. I had just decided +that Britain was not worth the bother of invading. But what you tell me decides +me that it is very much worth while.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s all nonsense,” said Anthea. “Britain is just +a savage sort of island—all fogs and trees and big rivers. But the people +are kind. We know a little girl there named Imogen. And it’s no use your +making guns because you can’t fire them without gunpowder, and that +won’t be invented for hundreds of years, and we don’t know how to +make it, and we can’t tell you. Do go straight home, dear Caesar, and let +poor little Britain alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“But this other girl-child says—” said Caesar. +</p> + +<p> +“All Jane’s been telling you is what it’s going to be,” +Anthea interrupted, “hundreds and hundreds of years from now.” +</p> + +<p> +“The little one is a prophetess, eh?” said Caesar, with a whimsical +look. “Rather young for the business, isn’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can call her a prophetess if you like,” said Cyril, “but +what Anthea says is true.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anthea?” said Caesar. “That’s a Greek name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely,” said Cyril, worriedly. “I say, I do wish +you’d give up this idea of conquering Britain. It’s not worth +while, really it isn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary,” said Caesar, “what you’ve told me +has decided me to go, if it’s only to find out what Britain is really +like. Guards, detain these children.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quick,” said Robert, “before the guards begin detaining. We +had enough of that in Babylon.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane held up the Amulet away from the sunset, and said the word. The learned +gentleman was pushed through and the others more quickly than ever before +passed through the arch back into their own times and the quiet dusty +sitting-room of the learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It is a curious fact that when Caesar was encamped on the coast of +Gaul—somewhere near Boulogne it was, I believe—he was sitting +before his tent in the glow of the sunset, looking out over the violet waters +of the English Channel. Suddenly he started, rubbed his eyes, and called his +secretary. The young man came quickly from within the tent. +</p> + +<p> +“Marcus,” said Caesar. “I have dreamed a very wonderful +dream. Some of it I forget, but I remember enough to decide what was not before +determined. Tomorrow the ships that have been brought round from the Ligeris +shall be provisioned. We shall sail for this three-cornered island. First, we +will take but two legions. +</p> + +<p> +This, if what we have heard be true, should suffice. But if my dream be true, +then a hundred legions will not suffice. For the dream I dreamed was the most +wonderful that ever tormented the brain even of Caesar. And Caesar has dreamed +some strange things in his time.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“And if you hadn’t told Caesar all that about how things are now, +he’d never have invaded Britain,” said Robert to Jane as they sat +down to tea. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nonsense,” said Anthea, pouring out; “it was all settled +hundreds of years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Cyril. “Jam, please. This about +time being only a thingummy of thought is very confusing. If everything happens +at the same time—” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>can’t!</i>” said Anthea stoutly, “the +present’s the present and the past’s the past.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not always,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“When we were in the Past the present was the future. Now then!” he +added triumphantly. +</p> + +<p> +And Anthea could not deny it. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have liked to see more of the camp,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we didn’t get much for our money—but Imogen is happy, +that’s one thing,” said Anthea. “We left her happy in the +Past. I’ve often seen about people being happy in the Past, in poetry +books. I see what it means now.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not a bad idea,” said the Psammead sleepily, putting +its head out of its bag and taking it in again suddenly, “being left in +the Past.” +</p> + +<p> +Everyone remembered this afterwards, when— +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /> +BEFORE PHARAOH</h2> + +<p> +It was the day after the adventure of Julius Caesar and the Little Black Girl +that Cyril, bursting into the bathroom to wash his hands for dinner (you have +no idea how dirty they were, for he had been playing shipwrecked mariners all +the morning on the leads at the back of the house, where the water-cistern is), +found Anthea leaning her elbows on the edge of the bath, and crying steadily +into it. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” he said, with brotherly concern, “what’s up +now? Dinner’ll be cold before you’ve got enough salt-water for a +bath.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go away,” said Anthea fiercely. “I hate you! I hate +everybody!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a stricken pause. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> didn’t know,” said Cyril tamely. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody ever does know anything,” sobbed Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know you were waxy. I thought you’d just hurt your +fingers with the tap again like you did last week,” Cyril carefully +explained. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—fingers!” sneered Anthea through her sniffs. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, drop it, Panther,” he said uncomfortably. “You +haven’t been having a row or anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said. “Wash your horrid hands, for goodness’ +sake, if that’s what you came for, or go.” +</p> + +<p> +Anthea was so seldom cross that when she was cross the others were always more +surprised than angry. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril edged along the side of the bath and stood beside her. He put his hand on +her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Dry up, do,” he said, rather tenderly for him. And, finding that +though she did not at once take his advice she did not seem to resent it, he +put his arm awkwardly across her shoulders and rubbed his head against her ear. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” he said, in the tone of one administering a priceless cure +for all possible sorrows. “Now, what’s up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Promise you won’t laugh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t feel laughish myself,” said Cyril, dismally. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said Anthea, leaning her ear against his head, +“it’s Mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with Mother?” asked Cyril, with apparent +want of sympathy. “She was all right in her letter this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but I want her so.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not the only one,” said Cyril briefly, and the +brevity of his tone admitted a good deal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Anthea, “I know. We all want her all the +time. But I want her now most dreadfully, awfully much. I never wanted anything +so much. That Imogen child—the way the ancient British Queen cuddled her +up! And Imogen wasn’t me, and the Queen was Mother. And then her letter +this morning! And about The Lamb liking the salt bathing! And she bathed him in +this very bath the night before she went away—oh, oh, oh!” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril thumped her on the back. +</p> + +<p> +“Cheer up,” he said. “You know my inside thinking that I was +doing? Well, that was partly about Mother. We’ll soon get her back. If +you’ll chuck it, like a sensible kid, and wash your face, I’ll tell +you about it. That’s right. You let me get to the tap. Can’t you +stop crying? Shall I put the door-key down your back?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s for noses,” said Anthea, “and I’m not a +kid any more than you are,” but she laughed a little, and her mouth began +to get back into its proper shape. You know what an odd shape your mouth gets +into when you cry in earnest. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said Cyril, working the soap round and round between +his hands in a thick slime of grey soapsuds. “I’ve been thinking. +We’ve only just <i>played</i> with the Amulet so far. We’ve got to +<i>work</i> it now—work it for all it’s worth. And it isn’t +only Mother either. There’s Father out there all among the fighting. I +don’t howl about it, but I <i>think</i>—Oh, bother the soap!” +The grey-lined soap had squirted out under the pressure of his fingers, and had +hit Anthea’s chin with as much force as though it had been shot from a +catapult. +</p> + +<p> +“There now,” she said regretfully, “now I shall have to wash +my face.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d have had to do that anyway,” said Cyril with +conviction. “Now, my idea’s this. You know missionaries?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea, who did not know a single one. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, and +hats, and braces, and really useful things—things the savages +haven’t got, and never heard about. And the savages love them for their +kind generousness, and give them pearls, and shells, and ivory, and +cassowaries. And that’s the way—” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a sec,” said Anthea, splashing. “I can’t hear +what you’re saying. Shells and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Shells, and things like that. The great thing is to get people to love +you by being generous. And that’s what we’ve got to do. Next time +we go into the Past we’ll regularly fit out the expedition. You remember +how the Babylonian Queen froze on to that pocket-book? Well, we’ll take +things like that. And offer them in exchange for a sight of the Amulet.” +</p> + +<p> +“A sight of it is not much good.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, silly. But, don’t you see, when we’ve seen it we shall +know where it is, and we can go and take it in the night when everybody is +asleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“It wouldn’t be stealing, would it?” said Anthea +thoughtfully, “because it will be such an awfully long time ago when we +do it. Oh, there’s that bell again.” +</p> + +<p> +As soon as dinner was eaten (it was tinned salmon and lettuce, and a jam tart), +and the cloth cleared away, the idea was explained to the others, and the +Psammead was aroused from sand, and asked what it thought would be good +merchandise with which to buy the affection of say, the Ancient Egyptians, and +whether it thought the Amulet was likely to be found in the Court of Pharaoh. +</p> + +<p> +But it shook its head, and shot out its snail’s eyes hopelessly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not allowed to play in this game,” it said. “Of +course I <i>could</i> find out in a minute where the thing was, only I +mayn’t. But I may go so far as to own that your idea of taking things +with you isn’t a bad one. And I shouldn’t show them all at once. +Take small things and conceal them craftily about your persons.” +</p> + +<p> +This advice seemed good. Soon the table was littered over with things which the +children thought likely to interest the Ancient Egyptians. Anthea brought +dolls, puzzle blocks, a wooden tea-service, a green leather case with +<i>Nécessaire</i> written on it in gold letters. Aunt Emma had once given it to +Anthea, and it had then contained scissors, penknife, bodkin, stiletto, +thimble, corkscrew, and glove-buttoner. The scissors, knife, and thimble, and +penknife were, of course, lost, but the other things were there and as good as +new. Cyril contributed lead soldiers, a cannon, a catapult, a tin-opener, a +tie-clip, and a tennis ball, and a padlock—no key. Robert collected a +candle (“I don’t suppose they ever saw a self-fitting paraffin +one,” he said), a penny Japanese pin-tray, a rubber stamp with his +father’s name and address on it, and a piece of putty. +</p> + +<p> +Jane added a key-ring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held +cold-cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, and a key—no lock. +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t take all this rubbish,” said Robert, with some +scorn. “We must just each choose one thing.” +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon passed very agreeably in the attempt to choose from the table the +four most suitable objects. But the four children could not agree what was +suitable, and at last Cyril said— +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, let’s each be blindfolded and reach out, and the first +thing you touch you stick to.” +</p> + +<p> +This was done. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril touched the padlock. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea got the <i>Nécessaire</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Robert clutched the candle. +</p> + +<p> +Jane picked up the tie-clip. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not much,” she said. “I don’t believe +Ancient Egyptians wore ties.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said Anthea. “I believe it’s luckier not +to really choose. In the stories it’s always the thing the +wood-cutter’s son picks up in the forest, and almost throws away because +he thinks it’s no good, that turns out to be the magic thing in the end; +or else someone’s lost it, and he is rewarded with the hand of the +King’s daughter in marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want any hands in marriage, thank you.” said Cyril +firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor yet me,” said Robert. “It’s always the end of the +adventures when it comes to the marriage hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Are</i> we ready?” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> Egypt we’re going to, isn’t it?—nice +Egypt?” said Jane. “I won’t go anywhere I don’t know +about—like that dreadful big-wavy burning-mountain city,” she +insisted. +</p> + +<p> +Then the Psammead was coaxed into its bag. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said Cyril suddenly, “I’m rather sick of +kings. And people notice you so in palaces. Besides the Amulet’s sure to +be in a Temple. Let’s just go among the common people, and try to work +ourselves up by degrees. We might get taken on as Temple assistants.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like beadles,” said Anthea, “or vergers. They must have +splendid chances of stealing the Temple treasures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Righto!” was the general rejoinder. The charm was held up. It grew +big once again, and once again the warm golden Eastern light glowed softly +beyond it. +</p> + +<p> +As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang in their ears. +They went suddenly from the quiet of Fitzroy Street dining-room into a very +angry Eastern crowd, a crowd much too angry to notice them. They edged through +it to the wall of a house and stood there. The crowd was of men, women, and +children. They were of all sorts of complexions, and pictures of them might +have been coloured by any child with a shilling paint-box. The colours that +child would have used for complexions would have been yellow ochre, red ochre, +light red, sepia, and indian ink. But their faces were painted +already—black eyebrows and lashes, and some red lips. The women wore a +sort of pinafore with shoulder straps, and loose things wound round their heads +and shoulders. The men wore very little clothing—for they were the +working people—and the Egyptian boys and girls wore nothing at all, +unless you count the little ornaments hung on chains round their necks and +waists. The children saw all this before they could hear anything distinctly. +Everyone was shouting so. +</p> + +<p> +But a voice sounded above the other voices, and presently it was speaking in a +silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Comrades and fellow workers,” it said, and it was the voice of a +tall, coppery-coloured man who had climbed into a chariot that had been stopped +by the crowd. Its owner had bolted, muttering something about calling the +Guards, and now the man spoke from it. “Comrades and fellow workers, how +long are we to endure the tyranny of our masters, who live in idleness and +luxury on the fruit of our toil? They only give us a bare subsistence wage, and +they live on the fat of the land. We labour all our lives to keep them in +wanton luxury. Let us make an end of it!” +</p> + +<p> +A roar of applause answered him. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you going to do it?” cried a voice. +</p> + +<p> +“You look out,” cried another, “or you’ll get yourself +into trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard almost every single word of that,” whispered +Robert, “in Hyde Park last Sunday!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us strike for more bread and onions and beer, and a longer mid-day +rest,” the speaker went on. “You are tired, you are hungry, you are +thirsty. You are poor, your wives and children are pining for food. The barns +of the rich are full to bursting with the corn we want, the corn our labour has +grown. To the granaries!” +</p> + +<p> +“To the granaries!” cried half the crowd; but another voice shouted +clear above the tumult, “To Pharaoh! To the King! Let’s present a +petition to the King! He will listen to the voice of the oppressed!” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment the crowd swayed one way and another—first towards the +granaries and then towards the palace. Then, with a rush like that of an +imprisoned torrent suddenly set free, it surged along the street towards the +palace, and the children were carried with it. Anthea found it difficult to +keep the Psammead from being squeezed very uncomfortably. +</p> + +<p> +The crowd swept through the streets of dull-looking houses with few windows, +very high up, across the market where people were not buying but exchanging +goods. In a momentary pause Robert saw a basket of onions exchanged for a hair +comb and five fish for a string of beads. The people in the market seemed +better off than those in the crowd; they had finer clothes, and more of them. +They were the kind of people who, nowadays, would have lived at Brixton or +Brockley. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the trouble now?” a languid, large-eyed lady in a +crimped, half-transparent linen dress, with her black hair very much braided +and puffed out, asked of a date-seller. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the working-men—discontented as usual,” the man +answered. “Listen to them. Anyone would think it mattered whether they +had a little more or less to eat. Dregs of society!” said the +date-seller. +</p> + +<p> +“Scum!” said the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ve heard <i>that</i> before, too,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment the voice of the crowd changed, from anger to doubt, from doubt +to fear. There were other voices shouting; they shouted defiance and menace, +and they came nearer very quickly. There was the rattle of wheels and the +pounding of hoofs. A voice shouted, “Guards!” +</p> + +<p> +“The Guards! The Guards!” shouted another voice, and the crowd of +workmen took up the cry. “The Guards! Pharaoh’s Guards!” And +swaying a little once more, the crowd hung for a moment as it were balanced. +Then as the trampling hoofs came nearer the workmen fled dispersed, up alleys +and into the courts of houses, and the Guards in their embossed leather +chariots swept down the street at the gallop, their wheels clattering over the +stones, and their dark-coloured, blue tunics blown open and back with the wind +of their going. +</p> + +<p> +“So <i>that</i> riot’s over,” said the crimped-linen-dressed +lady; “that’s a blessing! And did you notice the Captain of the +Guard? What a very handsome man he was, to be sure!” +</p> + +<p> +The four children had taken advantage of the moment’s pause before the +crowd turned to fly, to edge themselves and drag each other into an arched +doorway. +</p> + +<p> +Now they each drew a long breath and looked at the others. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re well out of <i>that</i>,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea, “but I do wish the poor men hadn’t +been driven back before they could get to the King. He might have done +something for them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if he was the one in the Bible he wouldn’t,” said Jane. +“He had a hard heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that was the Moses one,” Anthea explained. “The Joseph +one was quite different. I should like to see Pharaoh’s house. I wonder +whether it’s like the Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought we decided to try to get taken on in a Temple,” said +Cyril in injured tones. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but we’ve got to know someone first. Couldn’t we make +friends with a Temple doorkeeper—we might give him the padlock or +something. I wonder which are temples and which are palaces,” Robert +added, glancing across the market-place to where an enormous gateway with huge +side buildings towered towards the sky. To right and left of it were other +buildings only a little less magnificent. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you wish to seek out the Temple of Amen Rā?” asked a soft +voice behind them, “or the Temple of Mut, or the Temple of Khonsu?” +</p> + +<p> +They turned to find beside them a young man. He was shaved clean from head to +foot, and on his feet were light papyrus sandals. He was clothed in a linen +tunic of white, embroidered heavily in colours. He was gay with anklets, +bracelets, and armlets of gold, richly inlaid. He wore a ring on his finger, +and he had a short jacket of gold embroidery something like the Zouave soldiers +wear, and on his neck was a gold collar with many amulets hanging from it. But +among the amulets the children could see none like theirs. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter which Temple,” said Cyril frankly. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me your mission,” said the young man. “I am a divine +father of the Temple of Amen Rā and perhaps I can help you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Cyril, “we’ve come from the great Empire +on which the sun never sets.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought somehow that you’d come from some odd, out-of-the-way +spot,” said the priest with courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +“And we’ve seen a good many palaces. We thought we should like to +see a Temple, for a change,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead stirred uneasily in its embroidered bag. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you brought gifts to the Temple?” asked the priest +cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“We <i>have</i> got some gifts,” said Cyril with equal caution. +“You see there’s magic mixed up in it. So we can’t tell you +everything. But we don’t want to give our gifts for nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beware how you insult the god,” said the priest sternly. “I +also can do magic. I can make a waxen image of you, and I can say words which, +as the wax image melts before the fire, will make you dwindle away and at last +perish miserably.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh!” said Cyril stoutly, “that’s nothing. I can make +<i>fire</i> itself!” +</p> + +<p> +“I should jolly well like to see you do it,” said the priest +unbelievingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you shall,” said Cyril, “nothing easier. Just stand +close round me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you need no preparation—no fasting, no incantations?” The +priest’s tone was incredulous. +</p> + +<p> +“The incantation’s quite short,” said Cyril, taking the hint; +“and as for fasting, it’s not needed in <i>my</i> sort of magic. +Union Jack, Printing Press, Gunpowder, Rule Britannia! Come, Fire, at the end +of this little stick!” +</p> + +<p> +He had pulled a match from his pocket, and as he ended the incantation which +contained no words that it seemed likely the Egyptian had ever heard he stooped +in the little crowd of his relations and the priest and struck the match on his +boot. He stood up, shielding the flame with one hand. +</p> + +<p> +“See?” he said, with modest pride. “Here, take it into your +hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said the priest, swiftly backing. “Can you +do that again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then come with me to the great double house of Pharaoh. He loves good +magic, and he will raise you to honour and glory. There’s no need of +secrets between initiates,” he went on confidentially. “The fact +is, I am out of favour at present owing to a little matter of failure of +prophecy. I told him a beautiful princess would be sent to him from Syria, and, +lo! a woman thirty years old arrived. But she <i>was</i> a beautiful woman not +so long ago. Time is only a mode of thought, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +The children thrilled to the familiar words. +</p> + +<p> +“So you know that too, do you?” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“It is part of the mystery of all magic, is it not?” said the +priest. “Now if I bring you to Pharaoh the little unpleasantness I spoke +of will be forgotten. And I will ask Pharaoh, the Great House, Son of the Sun, +and Lord of the South and North, to decree that you shall lodge in the Temple. +Then you can have a good look round, and teach me your magic. And I will teach +you mine.” +</p> + +<p> +This idea seemed good—at least it was better than any other which at that +moment occurred to anybody, so they followed the priest through the city. +</p> + +<p> +The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the priest explained, +were built within walls twenty to twenty-five feet high, and such windows as +showed in the walls were very high up. The tops of palm-trees showed above the +walls. The poor people’s houses were little square huts with a door and +two windows, and smoke coming out of a hole in the back. +</p> + +<p> +“The poor Egyptians haven’t improved so very much in their building +since the first time we came to Egypt,” whispered Cyril to Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +The huts were roofed with palm branches, and everywhere there were chickens, +and goats, and little naked children kicking about in the yellow dust. On one +roof was a goat, who had climbed up and was eating the dry palm-leaves with +snorts and head-tossings of delight. Over every house door was some sort of +figure or shape. +</p> + +<p> +“Amulets,” the priest explained, “to keep off the evil +eye.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think much of your ‘nice Egypt’,” Robert +whispered to Jane; “it’s simply not a patch on Babylon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you wait till you see the palace,” Jane whispered back. +</p> + +<p> +The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they had yet seen +that day, though it would have made but a poor show beside that of the +Babylonian King. They came to it through a great square pillared doorway of +sandstone that stood in a high brick wall. The shut doors were of massive +cedar, with bronze hinges, and were studded with bronze nails. At the side was +a little door and a wicket gate, and through this the priest led the children. +He seemed to know a word that made the sentries make way for him. +</p> + +<p> +Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of trees and +flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus flowers at the margin, +and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and looking, as Jane said, quite modern. +</p> + +<p> +“The guard-chamber, the store-houses, the queen’s house,” +said the priest, pointing them out. +</p> + +<p> +They passed through open courtyards, paved with flat stones, and the priest +whispered to a guard at a great inner gate. +</p> + +<p> +“We are fortunate,” he said to the children, “Pharaoh is even +now in the Court of Honour. Now, don’t forget to be overcome with respect +and admiration. It won’t do any harm if you fall flat on your faces. And +whatever you do, don’t speak until you’re spoken to.” +</p> + +<p> +“There used to be that rule in our country,” said Robert, +“when my father was a little boy.” +</p> + +<p> +At the outer end of the great hall a crowd of people were arguing with and even +shoving the Guards, who seemed to make it a rule not to let anyone through +unless they were bribed to do it. The children heard several promises of the +utmost richness, and wondered whether they would ever be kept. +</p> + +<p> +All round the hall were pillars of painted wood. The roof was of cedar, +gorgeously inlaid. About half-way up the hall was a wide, shallow step that +went right across the hall; then a little farther on another; and then a steep +flight of narrower steps, leading right up to the throne on which Pharaoh sat. +He sat there very splendid, his red and white double crown on his head, and his +sceptre in his hand. The throne had a canopy of wood and wooden pillars painted +in bright colours. On a low, broad bench that ran all round the hall sat the +friends, relatives, and courtiers of the King, leaning on richly-covered +cushions. +</p> + +<p> +The priest led the children up the steps till they all stood before the throne; +and then, suddenly, he fell on his face with hands outstretched. The others did +the same, Anthea falling very carefully because of the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“Raise them,” said the voice of Pharaoh, “that they may speak +to me.” +</p> + +<p> +The officers of the King’s household raised them. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are these strangers?” Pharaoh asked, and added very crossly, +“And what do you mean, Rekh-marā, by daring to come into my presence +while your innocence is not established?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, great King,” said the young priest, “you are the very +image of Rā, and the likeness of his son Horus in every respect. You know the +thoughts of the hearts of the gods and of men, and you have divined that these +strangers are the children of the children of the vile and conquered Kings of +the Empire where the sun never sets. They know a magic not known to the +Egyptians. And they come with gifts in their hands as tribute to Pharaoh, in +whose heart is the wisdom of the gods, and on his lips their truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is all very well,” said Pharaoh, “but where are the +gifts?” +</p> + +<p> +The children, bowing as well as they could in their embarrassment at finding +themselves the centre of interest in a circle more grand, more golden and more +highly coloured than they could have imagined possible, pulled out the padlock, +the <i>Nécessaire</i>, and the tie-clip. “But it’s not tribute all +the same,” Cyril muttered. “England doesn’t pay +tribute!” +</p> + +<p> +Pharaoh examined all the things with great interest when the chief of the +household had taken them up to him. “Deliver them to the Keeper of the +Treasury,” he said to one near him. And to the children he said— +</p> + +<p> +“A small tribute, truly, but strange, and not without worth. And the +magic, O Rekh-marā?” +</p> + +<p> +“These unworthy sons of a conquered nation...” began Rekh-marā. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing of the kind!” Cyril whispered angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“... of a vile and conquered nation, can make fire to spring from dry +wood—in the sight of all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should jolly well like to see them do it,” said Pharaoh, just as +the priest had done. +</p> + +<p> +So Cyril, without more ado, did it. +</p> + +<p> +“Do more magic,” said the King, with simple appreciation. +</p> + +<p> +“He cannot do any more magic,” said Anthea suddenly, and all eyes +were turned on her, “because of the voice of the free people who are +shouting for bread and onions and beer and a long mid-day rest. If the people +had what they wanted, he could do more.” +</p> + +<p> +“A rude-spoken girl,” said Pharaoh. “But give the dogs what +they want,” he said, without turning his head. “Let them have their +rest and their extra rations. There are plenty of slaves to work.” +</p> + +<p> +A richly-dressed official hurried out. +</p> + +<p> +“You will be the idol of the people,” Rekh-marā whispered joyously; +“the Temple of Amen will not contain their offerings.” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril struck another match, and all the court was overwhelmed with delight and +wonder. And when Cyril took the candle from his pocket and lighted it with the +match, and then held the burning candle up before the King the enthusiasm knew +no bounds. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, greatest of all, before whom sun and moon and stars bow down,” +said Rekh-marā insinuatingly, “am I pardoned? Is my innocence made +plain?” +</p> + +<p> +“As plain as it ever will be, I daresay,” said Pharaoh shortly. +“Get along with you. You are pardoned. Go in peace.” The priest +went with lightning swiftness. +</p> + +<p> +“And what,” said the King suddenly, “is it that moves in that +sack? +</p> + +<p> +Show me, oh strangers.” +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing for it but to show the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“Seize it,” said Pharaoh carelessly. “A very curious monkey. +It will be a nice little novelty for my wild beast collection.” +</p> + +<p> +And instantly, the entreaties of the children availing as little as the bites +of the Psammead, though both bites and entreaties were fervent, it was carried +away from before their eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>do</i> be careful!” cried Anthea. “At least keep it +dry! Keep it in its sacred house!” +</p> + +<p> +She held up the embroidered bag. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a magic creature,” cried Robert; “it’s +simply priceless!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve no right to take it away,” cried Jane incautiously. +“It’s a shame, a barefaced robbery, that’s what it is!” +</p> + +<p> +There was an awful silence. Then Pharaoh spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Take the sacred house of the beast from them,” he said, “and +imprison all. Tonight after supper it may be our pleasure to see more magic. +Guard them well, and do not torture them—yet!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear!” sobbed Jane, as they were led away. “I knew +exactly what it would be! Oh, I wish you hadn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up, silly,” said Cyril. “You know you <i>would</i> come +to Egypt. It was your own idea entirely. Shut up. It’ll be all +right.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought we should play ball with queens,” sobbed Jane, +“and have no end of larks! And now everything’s going to be +perfectly horrid!” +</p> + +<p> +The room they were shut up in <i>was</i> a room, and not a dungeon, as the +elder ones had feared. That, as Anthea said, was one comfort. There were +paintings on the wall that at any other time would have been most interesting. +And a sort of low couch, and chairs. +</p> + +<p> +When they were alone Jane breathed a sigh of relief. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we can get home all right,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“And leave the Psammead?” said Anthea reproachfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a sec. I’ve got an idea,” said Cyril. He pondered for a +few moments. Then he began hammering on the heavy cedar door. It opened, and a +guard put in his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop that row,” he said sternly, “or—” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” Cyril interrupted, “it’s very dull for you +isn’t it? Just doing nothing but guard us. Wouldn’t you like to see +some magic? We’re not too proud to do it for you. Wouldn’t you like +to see it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind if I do,” said the guard. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, you get us that monkey of ours that was taken away, and +we’ll show you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know you’re not making game of me?” asked the +soldier. “Shouldn’t wonder if you only wanted to get the creature +so as to set it on me. I daresay its teeth and claws are poisonous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, look here,” said Robert. “You see we’ve got +nothing with us? You just shut the door, and open it again in five minutes, and +we’ll have got a magic—oh, I don’t know—a magic flower +in a pot for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you can do that you can do anything,” said the soldier, and he +went out and barred the door. +</p> + +<p> +Then, of course, they held up the Amulet. They found the East by holding it up, +and turning slowly till the Amulet began to grow big, walked home through it, +and came back with a geranium in full scarlet flower from the staircase window +of the Fitzroy Street house. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said the soldier when he came in. “I really +am—!” +</p> + +<p> +“We can do much more wonderful things than that—oh, ever so +much,” said Anthea persuasively, “if we only have our monkey. And +here’s twopence for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +The soldier looked at the twopence. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Robert explained how much simpler it was to pay money for things than to +exchange them as the people were doing in the market. Later on the soldier gave +the coins to his captain, who, later still, showed them to Pharaoh, who of +course kept them and was much struck with the idea. That was really how coins +first came to be used in Egypt. You will not believe this, I daresay, but +really, if you believe the rest of the story, I don’t see why you +shouldn’t believe this as well. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said Anthea, struck by a sudden thought, “I suppose +it’ll be all right about those workmen? The King won’t go back on +what he said about them just because he’s angry with us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said the soldier, “you see, he’s rather +afraid of magic. He’ll keep to his word right enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then <i>that’s</i> all right,” said Robert; and Anthea said +softly and coaxingly— +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, <i>do</i> get us the monkey, and then you’ll see some lovely +magic. Do—there’s a nice, kind soldier.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know where they’ve put your precious monkey, but if +I can get another chap to take on my duty here I’ll see what I can +do,” he said grudgingly, and went out. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean,” said Robert, “that we’re going off +without even <i>trying</i> for the other half of the Amulet?” +</p> + +<p> +“I really think we’d better,” said Anthea tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course the other half of the Amulet’s here somewhere or our +half wouldn’t have brought us here. I do wish we could find it. It is a +pity we don’t know any <i>real</i> magic. Then we could find out. I do +wonder where it is—exactly.” +</p> + +<p> +If they had only known it, something very like the other half of the Amulet was +very near them. It hung round the neck of someone, and that someone was +watching them through a chink, high up in the wall, specially devised for +watching people who were imprisoned. But they did not know. +</p> + +<p> +There was nearly an hour of anxious waiting. They tried to take an interest in +the picture on the wall, a picture of harpers playing very odd harps and women +dancing at a feast. They examined the painted plaster floor, and the chairs +were of white painted wood with coloured stripes at intervals. +</p> + +<p> +But the time went slowly, and everyone had time to think of how Pharaoh had +said, “Don’t torture them—<i>yet</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the worst comes to the worst,” said Cyril, “we must just +bunk, and leave the Psammead. I believe it can take care of itself well enough. +They won’t kill it or hurt it when they find it can speak and give +wishes. They’ll build it a temple, I shouldn’t wonder.” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t bear to go without it,” said Anthea, “and +Pharaoh said ‘After supper’, that won’t be just yet. And the +soldier <i>was</i> curious. I’m sure we’re all right for the +present.” +</p> + +<p> +All the same, the sounds of the door being unbarred seemed one of the prettiest +sounds possible. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose he hasn’t got the Psammead?” whispered Jane. +</p> + +<p> +But that doubt was set at rest by the Psammead itself; for almost before the +door was open it sprang through the chink of it into Anthea’s arms, +shivering and hunching up its fur. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s its fancy overcoat,” said the soldier, holding out +the bag, into which the Psammead immediately crept. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Cyril, “what would you like us to do? Anything +you’d like us to get for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Any little trick you like,” said the soldier. “If you can +get a strange flower blooming in an earthenware vase you can get anything, I +suppose,” he said. “I just wish I’d got two men’s loads +of jewels from the King’s treasury. That’s what I’ve always +wished for.” +</p> + +<p> +At the word “<i>wish</i>” the children knew that the Psammead would +attend to <i>that</i> bit of magic. It did, and the floor was littered with a +spreading heap of gold and precious stones. +</p> + +<p> +“Any other little trick?” asked Cyril loftily. “Shall we +become invisible? Vanish?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, if you like,” said the soldier; “but not through the +door, you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +He closed it carefully and set his broad Egyptian back against it. +</p> + +<p> +“No! no!” cried a voice high up among the tops of the tall wooden +pillars that stood against the wall. There was a sound of someone moving above. +</p> + +<p> +The soldier was as much surprised as anybody. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s magic, if you like,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +And then Jane held up the Amulet, uttering the word of Power. At the sound of +it and at the sight of the Amulet growing into the great arch the soldier fell +flat on his face among the jewels with a cry of awe and terror. +</p> + +<p> +The children went through the arch with a quickness born of long practice. But +Jane stayed in the middle of the arch and looked back. +</p> + +<p> +The others, standing on the dining-room carpet in Fitzroy Street, turned and +saw her still in the arch. “Someone’s holding her,” cried +Cyril. “We must go back.” +</p> + +<p> +But they pulled at Jane’s hands just to see if she would come, and, of +course, she did come. +</p> + +<p> +Then, as usual, the arch was little again and there they all were. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do wish you hadn’t!” Jane said crossly. “It +<i>was</i> so interesting. The priest had come in and he was kicking the +soldier, and telling him he’d done it now, and they must take the jewels +and flee for their lives.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did they?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. You interfered,” said Jane ungratefully. +“I <i>should</i> have liked to see the last of it.” +</p> + +<p> +As a matter of fact, none of them had seen the last of it—if by +“it” Jane meant the adventure of the Priest and the Soldier. +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /> +THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY</h2> + +<p> +“Look here, said Cyril, sitting on the dining-table and swinging his +legs; “I really have got it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Got what?” was the not unnatural rejoinder of the others. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril was making a boat with a penknife and a piece of wood, and the girls were +making warm frocks for their dolls, for the weather was growing chilly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you see? It’s really not any good our going into +the Past looking for that Amulet. The Past’s as full of different times +as—as the sea is of sand. We’re simply bound to hit upon the wrong +time. We might spend our lives looking for the Amulet and never see a sight of +it. Why, it’s the end of September already. It’s like looking for a +needle in—” +</p> + +<p> +“A bottle of hay—I know,” interrupted Robert; “but if +we don’t go on doing that, what ARE we to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just it,” said Cyril in mysterious accents. +“Oh, <i>bother!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Old Nurse had come in with the tray of knives, forks, and glasses, and was +getting the tablecloth and table-napkins out of the chiffonier drawer. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s always meal-times just when you come to anything +interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“And a nice interesting handful <i>you’d</i> be, Master +Cyril,” said old Nurse, “if I wasn’t to bring your meals up +to time. Don’t you begin grumbling now, fear you get something to grumble +<i>at</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t grumbling,” said Cyril quite untruly; “but it +does always happen like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You deserve to <i>have</i> something happen,” said old Nurse. +“Slave, slave, slave for you day and night, and never a word of thanks. +...” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you do everything beautifully,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the first time any of you’s troubled to say so, +anyhow,” said Nurse shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the use of <i>saying?</i>” inquired Robert. “We +<i>eat</i> our meals fast enough, and almost always two helps. <i>That</i> +ought to show you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said old Nurse, going round the table and putting the knives +and forks in their places; “you’re a man all over, Master Robert. +There was my poor Green, all the years he lived with me I never could get more +out of him than ‘It’s all right!’ when I asked him if +he’d fancied his dinner. And yet, when he lay a-dying, his last words to +me was, ‘Maria, you was always a good cook!’” She ended with +a trembling voice. +</p> + +<p> +“And so you are,” cried Anthea, and she and Jane instantly hugged +her. +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone out of the room Anthea said— +</p> + +<p> +“I know exactly how she feels. Now, look here! Let’s do a penance +to show we’re sorry we didn’t think about telling her before what +nice cooking she does, and what a dear she is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Penances are silly,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Not if the penance is something to please someone else. I didn’t +mean old peas and hair shirts and sleeping on the stones. I mean we’ll +make her a sorry-present,” explained Anthea. “Look here! I vote +Cyril doesn’t tell us his idea until we’ve done something for old +Nurse. It’s worse for us than him,” she added hastily, +“because he knows what it is and we don’t. Do you all agree?” +</p> + +<p> +The others would have been ashamed not to agree, so they did. It was not till +quite near the end of dinner—mutton fritters and blackberry and apple +pie—that out of the earnest talk of the four came an idea that pleased +everybody and would, they hoped, please Nurse. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril and Robert went out with the taste of apple still in their mouths and the +purple of blackberries on their lips—and, in the case of Robert, on the +wristband as well—and bought a big sheet of cardboard at the stationers. +Then at the plumber’s shop, that has tubes and pipes and taps and +gas-fittings in the window, they bought a pane of glass the same size as the +cardboard. The man cut it with a very interesting tool that had a bit of +diamond at the end, and he gave them, out of his own free generousness, a large +piece of putty and a small piece of glue. +</p> + +<p> +While they were out the girls had floated four photographs of the four children +off their cards in hot water. These were now stuck in a row along the top of +the cardboard. Cyril put the glue to melt in a jampot, and put the jampot in a +saucepan and saucepan on the fire, while Robert painted a wreath of poppies +round the photographs. He painted rather well and very quickly, and poppies are +easy to do if you’ve once been shown how. Then Anthea drew some printed +letters and Jane coloured them. The words were: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“With all our loves to shew<br /> +We like the thigs to eat.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And when the painting was dry they all signed their names at the bottom and put +the glass on, and glued brown paper round the edge and over the back, and put +two loops of tape to hang it up by. +</p> + +<p> +Of course everyone saw when too late that there were not enough letters in +“things”, so the missing “n”was put in. It was +impossible, of course, to do the whole thing over again for just one letter. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said Anthea, placing it carefully, face up, under the +sofa. “It’ll be hours before the glue’s dry. Now, Squirrel, +fire ahead!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said Cyril in a great hurry, rubbing at his gluey +hands with his pocket handkerchief. “What I mean to say is this.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Robert at last, “<i>what</i> is it that you mean +to say?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like this,” said Cyril, and again stopped short. +</p> + +<p> +“Like <i>what?</i>” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I tell you if you will all keep on interrupting?” said +Cyril sharply. +</p> + +<p> +So no one said any more, and with wrinkled frowns he arranged his ideas. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” he said, “what I really mean is—we can +remember now what we did when we went to look for the Amulet. And if we’d +found it we should remember that too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather!” said Robert. “Only, you see we +haven’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“But in the future we shall have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we, though?” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—unless we’ve been made fools of by the Psammead. So +then, where we want to go to is where we shall remember about where we did find +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Robert, but he didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t,” said Anthea, who did, very nearly. +“Say it again, Squirrel, and very slowly.” +</p> + +<p> +“If,” said Cyril, very slowly indeed, “we go into the +future—after we’ve found the Amulet—” +</p> + +<p> +“But we’ve got to find it first,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“There will be a future,” said Cyril, driven to greater clearness +by the blank faces of the other three, “there will be a time <i>after</i> +we’ve found it. Let’s go into <i>that</i> time—and then we +shall remember <i>how</i> we found it. And then we can go back and do the +finding really.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Robert, and this time he did, and I hope <i>you</i> +do. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea. “Oh, Squirrel, how clever of you!” +</p> + +<p> +“But will the Amulet work both ways?” inquired Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“It ought to,” said Cyril, “if time’s only a thingummy +of whatsitsname. Anyway we might try.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s put on our best things, then,” urged Jane. “You +know what people say about progress and the world growing better and brighter. +I expect people will be awfully smart in the future.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Anthea, “we should have to wash anyway, +I’m all thick with glue.” +</p> + +<p> +When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up. +</p> + +<p> +“We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we’ve found +it,” said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They walked through the +big arch of the charm straight into the British Museum. They knew it at once, +and there, right in front of them, under a glass case, was the +Amulet—their own half of it, as well as the other half they had never +been able to find—and the two were joined by a pin of red stone that +formed a hinge. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, glorious!” cried Robert. “Here it is!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Cyril, very gloomily, “here it is. But we +can’t get it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of Babylon +had found it to get anything out of the glass cases in the Museum—except +by Psammead magic, and then she hadn’t been able to take anything away +with her; “no—but we remember where we got it, and we +can—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>do</i> we?” interrupted Cyril bitterly, “do +<i>you</i> remember where we got it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Robert, “I don’t exactly, now I come to +think of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Nor did any of the others! +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>why</i> can’t we?” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>I</i> don’t know,” Cyril’s tone was impatient, +“some silly old enchanted rule I suppose. I wish people would teach you +magic at school like they do sums—or instead of. It would be some use +having an Amulet then.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder how far we are in the future,” said Anthea; the Museum +looks just the same, only lighter and brighter, somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go back and try the Past again,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps the Museum people could tell us how we got it,” said +Anthea with sudden hope. There was no one in the room, but in the next gallery, +where the Assyrian things are and still were, they found a kind, stout man in a +loose, blue gown, and stockinged legs. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they’ve got a new uniform, how pretty!” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +When they asked him their question he showed them a label on the case. It said, +“From the collection of—.” A name followed, and it was the +name of the learned gentleman who, among themselves, and to his face when he +had been with them at the other side of the Amulet, they had called Jimmy. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That’s</i> not much good,” said Cyril, “thank +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How is it you’re not at school?” asked the kind man in blue. +“Not expelled for long I hope?” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re not expelled at all,” said Cyril rather warmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I shouldn’t do it again, if I were you,” said the man, +and they could see he did not believe them. There is no company so little +pleasing as that of people who do not believe you. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for showing us the label,” said Cyril. And they came +away. +</p> + +<p> +As they came through the doors of the Museum they blinked at the sudden glory +of sunlight and blue sky. The houses opposite the Museum were gone. Instead +there was a big garden, with trees and flowers and smooth green lawns, and not +a single notice to tell you not to walk on the grass and not to destroy the +trees and shrubs and not to pick the flowers. There were comfortable seats all +about, and arbours covered with roses, and long, trellised walks, also +rose-covered. Whispering, splashing fountains fell into full white marble +basins, white statues gleamed among the leaves, and the pigeons that swept +about among the branches or pecked on the smooth, soft gravel were not black +and tumbled like the Museum pigeons are now, but bright and clean and sleek as +birds of new silver. A good many people were sitting on the seats, and on the +grass babies were rolling and kicking and playing—with very little on +indeed. Men, as well as women, seemed to be in charge of the babies and were +playing with them. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like a lovely picture,” said Anthea, and it was. For +the people’s clothes were of bright, soft colours and all beautifully and +very simply made. No one seemed to have any hats or bonnets, but there were a +great many Japanese-looking sunshades. And among the trees were hung lamps of +coloured glass. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect they light those in the evening,” said Jane. “I +<i>do</i> wish we lived in the future!” +</p> + +<p> +They walked down the path, and as they went the people on the benches looked at +the four children very curiously, but not rudely or unkindly. The children, in +their turn, looked—I hope they did not stare—at the faces of these +people in the beautiful soft clothes. Those faces were worth looking at. Not +that they were all handsome, though even in the matter of handsomeness they had +the advantage of any set of people the children had ever seen. But it was the +expression of their faces that made them worth looking at. The children could +not tell at first what it was. +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Anthea suddenly. “They’re not worried; +that’s what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no one +seemed to be anxious, or fretted, and though some did seem to be sad, not a +single one looked worried. +</p> + +<p> +But though the people looked kind everyone looked so interested in the children +that they began to feel a little shy and turned out of the big main path into a +narrow little one that wound among trees and shrubs and mossy, dripping +springs. +</p> + +<p> +It was here, in a deep, shadowed cleft between tall cypresses, that they found +the expelled little boy. He was lying face downward on the mossy turf, and the +peculiar shaking of his shoulders was a thing they had seen, more than once, in +each other. So Anthea kneeled down by him and said— +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m expelled from school,” said the boy between his sobs. +</p> + +<p> +This was serious. People are not expelled for light offences. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mind telling us what you’d done?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I tore up a sheet of paper and threw it about in the +playground,” said the child, in the tone of one confessing an unutterable +baseness. “You won’t talk to me any more now you know that,” +he added without looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“Was that all?” asked Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s about enough,” said the child; “and I’m +expelled for the whole day!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite understand,” said Anthea, gently. The boy +lifted his face, rolled over, and sat up. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, whoever on earth are you?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re strangers from a far country,” said Anthea. “In +our country it’s not a crime to leave a bit of paper about.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is here,” said the child. “If grown-ups do it +they’re fined. When we do it we’re expelled for the whole +day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but,” said Robert, “that just means a day’s +holiday.” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>must</i> come from a long way off,” said the little boy. +“A holiday’s when you all have play and treats and jolliness, all +of you together. On your expelled days no one’ll speak to you. Everyone +sees you’re an Expelleder or you’d be in school.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose you were ill?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody is—hardly. If they are, of course they wear the badge, and +everyone is kind to you. I know a boy that stole his sister’s illness +badge and wore it when he was expelled for a day. <i>He</i> got expelled for a +week for that. It must be awful not to go to school for a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you <i>like</i> school, then?” asked Robert incredulously. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I do. It’s the loveliest place there is. I chose +railways for my special subject this year, there are such splendid models and +things, and now I shall be all behind because of that torn-up paper.” +</p> + +<p> +“You choose your own subject?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course. Where <i>did</i> you come from? Don’t you know +<i>anything?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Jane definitely; “so you’d better tell +us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, on Midsummer Day school breaks up and everything’s decorated +with flowers, and you choose your special subject for next year. Of course you +have to stick to it for a year at least. Then there are all your other +subjects, of course, reading, and painting, and the rules of +Citizenship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said the child, jumping up, “it’s nearly +four. The expelledness only lasts till then. Come home with me. Mother will +tell you all about everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will your mother like you taking home strange children?” asked +Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” said the child, settling his leather +belt over his honey-coloured smock and stepping out with hard little bare feet. +“Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +So they went. +</p> + +<p> +The streets were wide and hard and very clean. There were no horses, but a sort +of motor carriage that made no noise. The Thames flowed between green banks, +and there were trees at the edge, and people sat under them, fishing, for the +stream was clear as crystal. Everywhere there were green trees and there was no +smoke. The houses were set in what seemed like one green garden. +</p> + +<p> +The little boy brought them to a house, and at the window was a good, bright +mother-face. The little boy rushed in, and through the window they could see +him hugging his mother, then his eager lips moving and his quick hands +pointing. +</p> + +<p> +A lady in soft green clothes came out, spoke kindly to them, and took them into +the oddest house they had ever seen. It was very bare, there were no ornaments, +and yet every single thing was beautiful, from the dresser with its rows of +bright china, to the thick squares of Eastern-looking carpet on the floors. I +can’t describe that house; I haven’t the time. And I haven’t +heart either, when I think how different it was from our houses. The lady took +them all over it. The oddest thing of all was the big room in the middle. It +had padded walls and a soft, thick carpet, and all the chairs and tables were +padded. There wasn’t a single thing in it that anyone could hurt itself +with. +</p> + +<p> +“What ever’s this for?—lunatics?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +The lady looked very shocked. +</p> + +<p> +“No! It’s for the children, of course,” she said. +“Don’t tell me that in your country there are no children’s +rooms.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are nurseries,” said Anthea doubtfully, “but the +furniture’s all cornery and hard, like other rooms.” +</p> + +<p> +“How shocking!” said the lady; “you must be <i>very</i> much +behind the times in your country! Why, the children are more than half of the +people; it’s not much to have one room where they can have a good time +and not hurt themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s no fireplace,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Hot-air pipes, of course,” said the lady. “Why, how could +you have a fire in a nursery? A child might get burned.” +</p> + +<p> +“In our country,” said Robert suddenly, “more than 3,000 +children are burned to death every year. Father told me,” he added, as if +apologizing for this piece of information, “once when I’d been +playing with fire.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady turned quite pale. +</p> + +<p> +“What a frightful place you must live in!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s all the furniture padded for?” Anthea asked, hastily +turning the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you couldn’t have little tots of two or three running about +in rooms where the things were hard and sharp! They might hurt +themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +Robert fingered the scar on his forehead where he had hit it against the +nursery fender when he was little. +</p> + +<p> +“But does everyone have rooms like this, poor people and all?” +asked Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a room like this wherever there’s a child, of +course,” said the lady. “How refreshingly ignorant you +are!—no, I don’t mean ignorant, my dear. Of course, you’re +awfully well up in ancient History. But I see you haven’t done your +Duties of Citizenship Course yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“But beggars, and people like that?” persisted Anthea “and +tramps and people who haven’t any homes?” +</p> + +<p> +“People who haven’t any homes?” repeated the lady. “I +really <i>don’t</i> understand what you’re talking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all different in our country,” said Cyril carefully; +and I have read it used to be different in London. Usedn’t people to have +no homes and beg because they were hungry? And wasn’t London very black +and dirty once upon a time? And the Thames all muddy and filthy? And narrow +streets, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“You must have been reading very old-fashioned books,” said the +lady. “Why, all that was in the dark ages! My husband can tell you more +about it than I can. He took Ancient History as one of his special +subjects.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen any working people,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, we’re all working people,” said the lady; “at +least my husband’s a carpenter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious!” said Anthea; “but you’re a +lady!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said the lady, “that quaint old word! Well, my husband +<i>will</i> enjoy a talk with you. In the dark ages everyone was allowed to +have a smoky chimney, and those nasty horses all over the streets, and all +sorts of rubbish thrown into the Thames. And, of course, the sufferings of the +people will hardly bear thinking of. It’s very learned of you to know it +all. Did <i>you</i> make Ancient History your special subject?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly,” said Cyril, rather uneasily. “What is the +Duties of Citizenship Course about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you <i>really</i> know? Aren’t you +pretending—just for fun? Really not? Well, that course teaches you how to +be a good citizen, what you must do and what you mayn’t do, so as to do +your full share of the work of making your town a beautiful and happy place for +people to live in. There’s a quite simple little thing they teach the +tiny children. How does it go...? +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I must not steal and I must learn,<br /> +Nothing is mine that I do not earn.<br /> +I must try in work and play<br /> +To make things beautiful every day.<br /> +I must be kind to everyone,<br /> +And never let cruel things be done.<br /> +I must be brave, and I must try<br /> +When I am hurt never to cry,<br /> +And always laugh as much as I can,<br /> +And be glad that I’m going to be a man<br /> +To work for my living and help the rest<br /> +And never do less than my very best.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s very easy,” said Jane. “<i>I</i> could remember +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s only the very beginning, of course,” said the lady; +“there are heaps more rhymes. There’s the one beginning— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I must not litter the beautiful street<br /> +With bits of paper or things to eat;<br /> +I must not pick the public flowers,<br /> +They are not <i>mine</i>, but they are <i>ours</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“And ‘things to eat’ reminds me—are you hungry? Wells, +run and get a tray of nice things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you call him ‘Wells’?” asked Robert, as the boy +ran off. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s after the great reformer—surely you’ve heard of +<i>him?</i> He lived in the dark ages, and he saw that what you ought to do is +to find out what you want and then try to get it. Up to then people had always +tried to tinker up what they’d got. We’ve got a great many of the +things he thought of. Then ‘Wells’ means springs of clear water. +It’s a nice name, don’t you think?” +</p> + +<p> +Here Wells returned with strawberries and cakes and lemonade on a tray, and +everybody ate and enjoyed. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Wells,” said the lady, “run off or you’ll be late +and not meet your Daddy.” +</p> + +<p> +Wells kissed her, waved to the others, and went. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said Anthea suddenly, “would you like to come to +<i>our</i> country, and see what it’s like? It wouldn’t take you a +minute.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady laughed. But Jane held up the charm and said the word. +</p> + +<p> +“What a splendid conjuring trick!” cried the lady, enchanted with +the beautiful, growing arch. +</p> + +<p> +“Go through,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +The lady went, laughing. But she did not laugh when she found herself, +suddenly, in the dining-room at Fitzroy Street. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a <i>horrible</i> trick!” she cried. “What a +hateful, dark, ugly place!” +</p> + +<p> +She ran to the window and looked out. The sky was grey, the street was foggy, a +dismal organ-grinder was standing opposite the door, a beggar and a man who +sold matches were quarrelling at the edge of the pavement on whose greasy black +surface people hurried along, hastening to get to the shelter of their houses. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, look at their faces, their horrible faces!” she cried. +“What’s the matter with them all?” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re poor people, that’s all,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s <i>not</i> all! They’re ill, they’re unhappy, +they’re wicked! Oh, do stop it, there’s dear children. It’s +very, very clever. Some sort of magic-lantern trick, I suppose, like I’ve +read of. But <i>do</i> stop it. Oh! their poor, tired, miserable, wicked +faces!” +</p> + +<p> +The tears were in her eyes. Anthea signed to Jane. The arch grew, they spoke +the words, and pushed the lady through it into her own time and place, where +London is clean and beautiful, and the Thames runs clear and bright, and the +green trees grow, and no one is afraid, or anxious, or in a hurry. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. Then— +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad we went,” said Anthea, with a deep breath. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll never throw paper about again as long as I live,” said +Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother always told us not to,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“I would like to take up the Duties of Citizenship for a special +subject,” said Cyril. “I wonder if Father could put me through it. +I shall ask him when he comes home.” +</p> + +<p> +“If we’d found the Amulet, Father could be home <i>now</i>,” +said Anthea, “and Mother and The Lamb.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go into the future <i>again</i>,” suggested Jane +brightly. “Perhaps we could remember if it wasn’t such an awful way +off.” +</p> + +<p> +So they did. This time they said, “The future, where the Amulet is, not +so far away.” +</p> + +<p> +And they went through the familiar arch into a large, light room with three +windows. Facing them was the familiar mummy-case. And at a table by the window +sat the learned gentleman. They knew him at once, though his hair was white. He +was one of the faces that do not change with age. In his hand was the +Amulet—complete and perfect. +</p> + +<p> +He rubbed his other hand across his forehead in the way they were so used to. +</p> + +<p> +“Dreams, dreams!” he said; “old age is full of them!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been in dreams with us before now,” said Robert, +“don’t you remember?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do, indeed,” said he. The room had many more books than the +Fitzroy Street room, and far more curious and wonderful Assyrian and Egyptian +objects. “The most wonderful dreams I ever had had you in them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where,” asked Cyril, “did you get that thing in your +hand?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you weren’t just a dream,” he answered, smiling, +you’d remember that you gave it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where did we get it?” Cyril asked eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you never would tell me that,” he said, “You always had +your little mysteries. You dear children! What a difference you made to that +old Bloomsbury house! I wish I could dream you oftener. Now you’re grown +up you’re not like you used to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Grown up?” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman pointed to a frame with four photographs in it. +</p> + +<p> +“There you are,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The children saw four grown-up people’s portraits—two ladies, two +gentlemen—and looked on them with loathing. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we grow up like <i>that?</i>” whispered Jane. “How +perfectly horrid!” +</p> + +<p> +“If we’re ever like that, we sha’nn’t know it’s +horrid, I expect,” Anthea with some insight whispered back. “You +see, you get used to yourself while you’re changing. +It’s—it’s being so sudden makes it seem so frightful +now.” +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman was looking at them with wistful kindness. +“Don’t let me undream you just yet,” he said. There was a +pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember <i>when</i> we gave you that Amulet?” Cyril asked +suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, or you would if you weren’t a dream, that it was on the +3rd December, 1905. I shall never forget <i>that</i> day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Cyril, earnestly; “oh, thank you very +much.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a new room,” said Anthea, looking out of the +window, “and what a lovely garden!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said he, “I’m too old now to care even about +being near the Museum. This is a beautiful place. Do you know—I can +hardly believe you’re just a dream, you do look so exactly real. Do you +know...” his voice dropped, “I can say it to <i>you</i>, though, of +course, if I said it to anyone that wasn’t a dream they’d call me +mad; there was something about that Amulet you gave me—something very +mysterious.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was that,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I don’t mean your pretty little childish mysteries about where +you got it. But about the thing itself. First, the wonderful dreams I used to +have, after you’d shown me the first half of it! Why, my book on +Atlantis, that I did, was the beginning of my fame and my fortune, too. And I +got it all out of a dream! And then, ‘Britain at the Time of the Roman +Invasion’—that was only a pamphlet, but it explained a lot of +things people hadn’t understood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea, “it would.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was the beginning. But after you’d given me the whole of the +Amulet—ah, it was generous of you!—then, somehow, I didn’t +need to theorize, I seemed to <i>know</i> about the old Egyptian civilization. +And they can’t upset my theories”—he rubbed his thin hands +and laughed triumphantly—“they can’t, though they’ve +tried. Theories, they call them, but they’re more like—I +don’t know—more like memories. I <i>know</i> I’m right about +the secret rites of the Temple of Amen.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad you’re rich,” said Anthea. “You +weren’t, you know, at Fitzroy Street.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I wasn’t,” said he, “but I am now. This +beautiful house and this lovely garden—I dig in it sometimes; you +remember, you used to tell me to take more exercise? Well, I feel I owe it all +to you—and the Amulet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad,” said Anthea, and kissed him. He started. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That</i> didn’t feel like a dream,” he said, and his +voice trembled. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t exactly a dream,” said Anthea softly, +“it’s all part of the Amulet—it’s a sort of extra +special, real dream, dear Jimmy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said he, “when you call me that, I know I’m +dreaming. My little sister—I dream of her sometimes. But it’s not +real like this. Do you remember the day I dreamed you brought me the Babylonish +ring?” +</p> + +<p> +“We remember it all,” said Robert. “Did you leave Fitzroy +Street because you were too rich for it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” he said reproachfully. “You know I should never +have done such a thing as that. Of course, I left when your old Nurse died +and—what’s the matter!” +</p> + +<p> +“Old Nurse <i>dead?</i>” said Anthea. “Oh, <i>no!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, it’s the common lot. It’s a long time ago +now.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane held up the Amulet in a hand that twittered. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” she cried, “oh, come home! She may be dead before we +get there, and then we can’t give it to her. Oh, come!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, don’t let the dream end now!” pleaded the learned +gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“It must,” said Anthea firmly, and kissed him again. +</p> + +<p> +“When it comes to people dying,” said Robert, “good-bye! +I’m so glad you’re rich and famous and happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Do</i> come!” cried Jane, stamping in her agony of impatience. +</p> + +<p> +And they went. Old Nurse brought in tea almost as soon as they were back in +Fitzroy Street. As she came in with the tray, the girls rushed at her and +nearly upset her and it. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t die!” cried Jane, “oh, don’t!” and +Anthea cried, “Dear, ducky, darling old Nurse, don’t die!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord, love you!” said Nurse, “I’m not agoin’ to +die yet a while, please Heaven! Whatever on earth’s the matter with the +chicks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. Only don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +She put the tray down and hugged the girls in turn. The boys thumped her on the +back with heartfelt affection. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m as well as ever I was in my life,” she said. “What +nonsense about dying! You’ve been a sitting too long in the dusk, +that’s what it is. Regular blind man’s holiday. Leave go of me, +while I light the gas.” +</p> + +<p> +The yellow light illuminated four pale faces. +</p> + +<p> +“We do love you so,” Anthea went on, “and we’ve made +you a picture to show you how we love you. Get it out, Squirrel.” +</p> + +<p> +The glazed testimonial was dragged out from under the sofa and displayed. +</p> + +<p> +“The glue’s not dry yet,” said Cyril, “look out!” +</p> + +<p> +“What a beauty!” cried old Nurse. “Well, I never! And your +pictures and the beautiful writing and all. Well, I always did say your hearts +was in the right place, if a bit careless at times. Well! I never did! I +don’t know as I was ever pleased better in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +She hugged them all, one after the other. And the boys did not mind it, +somehow, that day. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“How is it we can remember all about the future, <i>now?</i>” +Anthea woke the Psammead with laborious gentleness to put the question. +“How is it we can remember what we saw in the future, and yet, when we +<i>were</i> in the future, we could not remember the bit of the future that was +past then, the time of finding the Amulet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what a silly question!” said the Psammead, “of course +you cannot remember what hasn’t happened yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the <i>future</i> hasn’t happened yet,” Anthea +persisted, “and we remember that all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that isn’t what’s happened, my good child,” said +the Psammead, rather crossly, “that’s prophetic vision. And you +remember dreams, don’t you? So why not visions? You never do seem to +understand the simplest thing.” +</p> + +<p> +It went to sand again at once. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea crept down in her nightgown to give one last kiss to old Nurse, and one +last look at the beautiful testimonial hanging, by its tapes, its glue now +firmly set, in glazed glory on the wall of the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, bless your loving heart,” said old Nurse, “if +only you don’t catch your deather-cold!” +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +THE SHIPWRECK ON THE TIN ISLANDS</h2> + +<p> +“Blue and red,” said Jane softly, “make purple.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not always they don’t,” said Cyril, “it has to be +crimson lake and Prussian blue. If you mix Vermilion and Indigo you get the +most loathsome slate colour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sepia’s the nastiest colour in the box, I think,” said Jane, +sucking her brush. +</p> + +<p> +They were all painting. Nurse in the flush of grateful emotion, excited by +Robert’s border of poppies, had presented each of the four with a +shilling paint-box, and had supplemented the gift with a pile of old copies of +the <i>Illustrated London News</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Sepia,” said Cyril instructively, “is made out of beastly +cuttlefish.” +</p> + +<p> +“Purple’s made out of a fish, as well as out of red and +blue,” said Robert. “Tyrian purple was, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of lobsters?” said Jane dreamily. “They’re red +when they’re boiled, and blue when they aren’t. If you mixed live +and dead lobsters you’d get Tyrian purple.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> shouldn’t like to mix anything with a live +lobster,” said Anthea, shuddering. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there aren’t any other red and blue fish,” said Jane; +“you’d have to.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather not have the purple,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“The Tyrian purple wasn’t that colour when it came out of the fish, +nor yet afterwards, it wasn’t,” said Robert; “it was scarlet +really, and Roman Emperors wore it. And it wasn’t any nice colour while +the fish had it. It was a yellowish-white liquid of a creamy +consistency.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“I read it,” said Robert, with the meek pride of superior +knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“In print,” said Robert, still more proudly meek. +</p> + +<p> +“You think everything’s true if it’s printed,” said +Cyril, naturally annoyed, “but it isn’t. Father said so. Quite a +lot of lies get printed, especially in newspapers.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, as it happens,” said Robert, in what was really a rather +annoying tone, “it wasn’t a newspaper, it was in a book.” +</p> + +<p> +“How sweet Chinese white is!” said Jane, dreamily sucking her brush +again. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe it,” said Cyril to Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Have a suck yourself,” suggested Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean about the Chinese white. I mean about the cream fish +turning purple and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried Anthea, jumping up very quickly, “I’m tired +of painting. Let’s go somewhere by Amulet. I say let’s let +<i>it</i> choose.” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril and Robert agreed that this was an idea. Jane consented to stop painting +because, as she said, Chinese white, though certainly sweet, gives you a queer +feeling in the back of the throat if you paint with it too long. +</p> + +<p> +The Amulet was held up. +</p> + +<p> +“Take us somewhere,” said Jane, “anywhere you like in the +Past—but somewhere where you are.” Then she said the word. +</p> + +<p> +Next moment everyone felt a queer rocking and swaying—something like what +you feel when you go out in a fishing boat. And that was not wonderful, when +you come to think of it, for it was in a boat that they found themselves. A +queer boat, with high bulwarks pierced with holes for oars to go through. There +was a high seat for the steersman, and the prow was shaped like the head of +some great animal with big, staring eyes. The boat rode at anchor in a bay, and +the bay was very smooth. The crew were dark, wiry fellows with black beards and +hair. They had no clothes except a tunic from waist to knee, and round caps +with knobs on the top. They were very busy, and what they were doing was so +interesting to the children that at first they did not even wonder where the +Amulet had brought them. +</p> + +<p> +And the crew seemed too busy to notice the children. They were fastening rush +baskets to a long rope with a great piece of cork at the end, and in each +basket they put mussels or little frogs. Then they cast out the rope, the +baskets sank, but the cork floated. And all about on the blue water were other +boats and all the crews of all the boats were busy with ropes and baskets and +frogs and mussels. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever are you doing?” Jane suddenly asked a man who had rather +more clothes than the others, and seemed to be a sort of captain or overseer. +He started and stared at her, but he had seen too many strange lands to be very +much surprised at these queerly-dressed stowaways. +</p> + +<p> +“Setting lines for the dye shell-fish,” he said shortly. “How +did you get here?” +</p> + +<p> +“A sort of magic,” said Robert carelessly. The Captain fingered an +Amulet that hung round his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this place?” asked Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Tyre, of course,” said the man. Then he drew back and spoke in a +low voice to one of the sailors. +</p> + +<p> +“Now we shall know about your precious cream-jug fish,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“But we never <i>said</i> come to Tyre,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“The Amulet heard us talking, I expect. I think it’s <i>most</i> +obliging of it,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“And the Amulet’s here too,” said Robert. “We ought to +be able to find it in a little ship like this. I wonder which of them’s +got it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—look, look!” cried Anthea suddenly. On the bare breast of +one of the sailors gleamed something red. It was the exact counterpart of their +precious half-Amulet. +</p> + +<p> +A silence, full of emotion, was broken by Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ve found it!” she said. “Oh do let’s +take it and go home!” +</p> + +<p> +“Easy to say ‘take it’,” said Cyril; “he looks +very strong.” +</p> + +<p> +He did—yet not so strong as the other sailors. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s odd,” said Anthea musingly, “I do believe +I’ve seen that man somewhere before.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s rather like our learned gentleman,” said Robert, +“but I’ll tell you who he’s much more like—” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment that sailor looked up. His eyes met Robert’s—and +Robert and the others had no longer any doubt as to where they had seen him +before. It was Rekh-marā, the priest who had led them to the palace of +Pharaoh—and whom Jane had looked back at through the arch, when he was +counselling Pharaoh’s guard to take the jewels and fly for his life. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody was quite pleased, and nobody quite knew why. +</p> + +<p> +Jane voiced the feelings of all when she said, fingering <i>their</i> Amulet +through the folds of her frock, “We can go back in a minute if anything +nasty happens.” +</p> + +<p> +For the moment nothing worse happened than an offer of food—figs and +cucumbers it was, and very pleasant. +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said the Captain, “that you are from a far country. +Since you have honoured my boat by appearing on it, you must stay here till +morning. Then I will lead you to one of our great ones. He loves strangers from +far lands.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go home,” Jane whispered, “all the frogs are +drowning <i>now</i>. I think the people here are cruel.” +</p> + +<p> +But the boys wanted to stay and see the lines taken up in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just like eel-pots and lobster-pots,” said Cyril, +“the baskets only open from outside—I vote we stay.” +</p> + +<p> +So they stayed. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s Tyre over there,” said the Captain, who was evidently +trying to be civil. He pointed to a great island rock, that rose steeply from +the sea, crowned with huge walls and towers. There was another city on the +mainland. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s part of Tyre, too,” said the Captain; +“it’s where the great merchants have their pleasure-houses and +gardens and farms.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look, look!” Cyril cried suddenly; “what a lovely little +ship!” +</p> + +<p> +A ship in full sail was passing swiftly through the fishing fleet. The +Captain’s face changed. He frowned, and his eyes blazed with fury. +</p> + +<p> +“Insolent young barbarian!” he cried. “Do you call the ships +of Tyre <i>little?</i> None greater sail the seas. That ship has been on a +three years’ voyage. She is known in all the great trading ports from +here to the Tin Islands. She comes back rich and glorious. Her very anchor is +of silver.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure we beg your pardon,” said Anthea hastily. “In +our country we say ‘little’ for a pet name. Your wife might call +you her dear little husband, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to catch her at it,” growled the Captain, but he +stopped scowling. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a rich trade,” he went on. “For cloth <i>once</i> +dipped, second-best glass, and the rough images our young artists carve for +practice, the barbarian King in Tessos lets us work the silver mines. We get so +much silver there that we leave them our iron anchors and come back with silver +ones.” +</p> + +<p> +“How splendid!” said Robert. “Do go on. What’s cloth +once dipped?” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>must</i> be barbarians from the outer darkness,” said the +Captain scornfully. “All wealthy nations know that our finest stuffs are +twice dyed—dibaptha. They’re only for the robes of kings and +priests and princes.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do the rich merchants wear,” asked Jane, with interest, +“in the pleasure-houses?” +</p> + +<p> +“They wear the dibaptha. <i>Our</i> merchants <i>are</i> princes,” +scowled the skipper. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t be cross, we do so like hearing about things. We want to +know <i>all</i> about the dyeing,” said Anthea cordially. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you do, do you?” growled the man. “So that’s what +you’re here for? Well, you won’t get the secrets of the dye trade +out of <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +He went away, and everyone felt snubbed and uncomfortable. And all the time the +long, narrow eyes of the Egyptian were watching, watching. They felt as though +he was watching them through the darkness, when they lay down to sleep on a +pile of cloaks. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning the baskets were drawn up full of what looked like whelk shells. +</p> + +<p> +The children were rather in the way, but they made themselves as small as they +could. While the skipper was at the other end of the boat they did ask one +question of a sailor, whose face was a little less unkind than the others. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered, “this is the dye-fish. It’s a sort +of murex—and there’s another kind that they catch at Sidon and +then, of course, there’s the kind that’s used for the dibaptha. But +that’s quite different. It’s—” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue!” shouted the skipper. And the man held it. +</p> + +<p> +The laden boat was rowed slowly round the end of the island, and was made fast +in one of the two great harbours that lay inside a long breakwater. The harbour +was full of all sorts of ships, so that Cyril and Robert enjoyed themselves +much more than their sisters. The breakwater and the quays were heaped with +bales and baskets, and crowded with slaves and sailors. Farther along some men +were practising diving. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s jolly good,” said Robert, as a naked brown body cleft +the water. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think so,” said the skipper. “The pearl-divers of +Persia are not more skilful. Why, we’ve got a fresh-water spring that +comes out at the bottom of the sea. Our divers dive down and bring up the fresh +water in skin bottles! Can your barbarian divers do as much?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose not,” said Robert, and put away a wild desire to explain +to the Captain the English system of waterworks, pipes, taps, and the +intricacies of the plumbers’ trade. +</p> + +<p> +As they neared the quay the skipper made a hasty toilet. He did his hair, +combed his beard, put on a garment like a jersey with short sleeves, an +embroidered belt, a necklace of beads, and a big signet ring. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said he, “I’m fit to be seen. Come along?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where to?” said Jane cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“To Pheles, the great sea-captain, said the skipper, “the man I +told you of, who loves barbarians.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Rekh-marā came forward, and, for the first time, spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“I have known these children in another land,” he said. “You +know my powers of magic. It was my magic that brought these barbarians to your +boat. And you know how they will profit you. I read your thoughts. Let me come +with you and see the end of them, and then I will work the spell I promised you +in return for the little experience you have so kindly given me on your +boat.” +</p> + +<p> +The skipper looked at the Egyptian with some disfavour. +</p> + +<p> +“So it was <i>your</i> doing,” he said. “I might have guessed +it. Well, come on.” +</p> + +<p> +So he came, and the girls wished he hadn’t. But Robert whispered— +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense—as long as he’s with us we’ve got <i>some</i> +chance of the Amulet. We can always fly if anything goes wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +The morning was so fresh and bright; their breakfast had been so good and so +unusual; they had actually seen the Amulet round the Egyptian’s neck. One +or two, or all these things, suddenly raised the children’s spirits. They +went off quite cheerfully through the city gate—it was not arched, but +roofed over with a great flat stone—and so through the street, which +smelt horribly of fish and garlic and a thousand other things even less +agreeable. But far worse than the street scents was the scent of the factory, +where the skipper called in to sell his night’s catch. I wish I could +tell you all about that factory, but I haven’t time, and perhaps after +all you aren’t interested in dyeing works. I will only mention that +Robert was triumphantly proved to be right. The dye <i>was</i> a +yellowish-white liquid of a creamy consistency, and it smelt more strongly of +garlic than garlic itself does. +</p> + +<p> +While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works the Egyptian +came close to the children, and said, suddenly and softly— +</p> + +<p> +“Trust me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we could,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“You feel,” said the Egyptian, “that I want your Amulet. That +makes you distrust me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Cyril bluntly. +</p> + +<p> +“But you also, you want my Amulet, and I am trusting you.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s something in that,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“We have the two halves of the Amulet,” said the Priest, “but +not yet the pin that joined them. Our only chance of getting that is to remain +together. Once part these two halves and they may never be found in the same +time and place. Be wise. Our interests are the same.” +</p> + +<p> +Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him the +dye-master. His hair and beard were curled like the men’s in Babylon, and +he was dressed like the skipper, but with added grandeur of gold and +embroidery. He had necklaces of beads and silver, and a glass amulet with a +man’s face, very like his own, set between two bull’s heads, as +well as gold and silver bracelets and armlets. He looked keenly at the +children. Then he said— +</p> + +<p> +“My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He’s at his +garden house—unless he’s hunting wild boar in the marshes. He gets +frightfully bored on shore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said the skipper, “he’s a true-born Phoenician. +‘Tyre, Tyre for ever! Oh, Tyre rules the waves!’ as the old song +says. I’ll go at once, and show him my young barbarians.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should,” said the dye-master. “They are very rum, +aren’t they? What frightful clothes, and what a lot of them! Observe the +covering of their feet. Hideous indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +Robert could not help thinking how easy, and at the same time pleasant, it +would be to catch hold of the dye-master’s feet and tip him backward into +the great sunken vat just near him. But if he had, flight would have had to be +the next move, so he restrained his impulse. +</p> + +<p> +There was something about this Tyrian adventure that was different from all the +others. It was, somehow, calmer. And there was the undoubted fact that the +charm was there on the neck of the Egyptian. +</p> + +<p> +So they enjoyed everything to the full, the row from the Island City to the +shore, the ride on the donkeys that the skipper hired at the gate of the +mainland city, and the pleasant country—palms and figs and cedars all +about. It was like a garden—clematis, honeysuckle, and jasmine clung +about the olive and mulberry trees, and there were tulips and gladiolus, and +clumps of mandrake, which has bell-flowers that look as though they were cut +out of dark blue jewels. In the distance were the mountains of Lebanon. +</p> + +<p> +The house they came to at last was rather like a bungalow—long and low, +with pillars all along the front. Cedars and sycamores grew near it and +sheltered it pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone dismounted, and the donkeys were led away. +</p> + +<p> +“Why is this like Rosherville?” whispered Robert, and instantly +supplied the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Because it’s the place to spend a happy day.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s jolly decent of the skipper to have brought us to such a +ripping place,” said Cyril. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” said Anthea, “this feels more real than +anything else we’ve seen? It’s like a holiday in the country at +home.” +</p> + +<p> +The children were left alone in a large hall. The floor was mosaic, done with +wonderful pictures of ships and sea-beasts and fishes. Through an open doorway +they could see a pleasant courtyard with flowers. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to spend a week here,” said Jane, “and donkey +ride every day.” +</p> + +<p> +Everyone was feeling very jolly. Even the Egyptian looked pleasanter than +usual. And then, quite suddenly, the skipper came back with a joyous smile. +With him came the master of the house. He looked steadily at the children and +nodded twice. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, “my steward will pay you the price. But I +shall not pay at that high rate for the Egyptian dog.” +</p> + +<p> +The two passed on. +</p> + +<p> +“This,” said the Egyptian, “is a pretty kettle of +fish.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is?” asked all the children at once. +</p> + +<p> +“Our present position,” said Rekh-marā. “Our seafaring +friend,” he added, “has sold us all for slaves!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A hasty council succeeded the shock of this announcement. The Priest was +allowed to take part in it. His advice was “stay”, because they +were in no danger, and the Amulet in its completeness must be somewhere near, +or, of course, they could not have come to that place at all. And after some +discussion they agreed to this. +</p> + +<p> +The children were treated more as guests than as slaves, but the Egyptian was +sent to the kitchen and made to work. +</p> + +<p> +Pheles, the master of the house, went off that very evening, by the +King’s orders, to start on another voyage. And when he was gone his wife +found the children amusing company, and kept them talking and singing and +dancing till quite late. “To distract my mind from my sorrows,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“I do like being a slave,” remarked Jane cheerfully, as they curled +up on the big, soft cushions that were to be their beds. +</p> + +<p> +It was black night when they were awakened, each by a hand passed softly over +its face, and a low voice that whispered— +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet, or all is lost.” +</p> + +<p> +So they were quiet. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s me, Rekh-marā, the Priest of Amen,” said the whisperer. +“The man who brought us has gone to sea again, and he has taken my Amulet +from me by force, and I know no magic to get it back. Is there magic for that +in the Amulet you bear?” +</p> + +<p> +Everyone was instantly awake by now. +</p> + +<p> +“We can go after him,” said Cyril, leaping up; “but he might +take <i>ours</i> as well; or he might be angry with us for following +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see to <i>that</i>,” said the Egyptian in the dark. +“Hide your Amulet well.” +</p> + +<p> +There in the deep blackness of that room in the Tyrian country house the Amulet +was once more held up and the word spoken. +</p> + +<p> +All passed through on to a ship that tossed and tumbled on a wind-blown sea. +They crouched together there till morning, and Jane and Cyril were not at all +well. When the dawn showed, dove-coloured, across the steely waves, they stood +up as well as they could for the tumbling of the ship. Pheles, that hardy +sailor and adventurer, turned quite pale when he turned round suddenly and saw +them. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” he said, “well, I never did!” +</p> + +<p> +“Master,” said the Egyptian, bowing low, and that was even more +difficult than standing up, “we are here by the magic of the sacred +Amulet that hangs round your neck.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never did!” repeated Pheles. “Well, well!” +</p> + +<p> +“What port is the ship bound for?” asked Robert, with a nautical +air. +</p> + +<p> +But Pheles said, “Are you a navigator?” Robert had to own that he +was not. +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Pheles, “I don’t mind telling you that +we’re bound for the Tin Isles. Tyre alone knows where the Tin Isles are. +It is a splendid secret we keep from all the world. It is as great a thing to +us as your magic to you.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke in quite a new voice, and seemed to respect both the children and the +Amulet a good deal more than he had done before. +</p> + +<p> +“The King sent you, didn’t he?” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” answered Pheles, “he bade me set sail with half a +score brave gentlemen and this crew. You shall go with us, and see many +wonders.” He bowed and left them. +</p> + +<p> +“What are we going to do now?” said Robert, when Pheles had caused +them to be left along with a breakfast of dried fruits and a sort of hard +biscuit. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till he lands in the Tin Isles,” said Rekh-marā, “then +we can get the barbarians to help us. We will attack him by night and tear the +sacred Amulet from his accursed heathen neck,” he added, grinding his +teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“When shall we get to the Tin Isles?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—six months, perhaps, or a year,” said the Egyptian +cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“A <i>year</i> of this?” cried Jane, and Cyril, who was still +feeling far too unwell to care about breakfast, hugged himself miserably and +shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +It was Robert who said— +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, we can shorten that year. Jane, out with the Amulet! Wish +that we were where the Amulet will be when the ship is twenty miles from the +Tin Island. That’ll give us time to mature our plans.” +</p> + +<p> +It was done—the work of a moment—and there they were on the same +ship, between grey northern sky and grey northern sea. The sun was setting in a +pale yellow line. It was the same ship, but it was changed, and so were the +crew. Weather-worn and dirty were the sailors, and their clothes torn and +ragged. And the children saw that, of course, though they had skipped the nine +months, the ship had had to live through them. Pheles looked thinner, and his +face was rugged and anxious. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” he cried, “the charm has brought you back! I have +prayed to it daily these nine months—and now you are here? Have you no +magic that can help?” +</p> + +<p> +“What is your need?” asked the Egyptian quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“I need a great wave that shall whelm away the foreign ship that follows +us. A month ago it lay in wait for us, by the pillars of the gods, and it +follows, follows, to find out the secret of Tyre—the place of the Tin +Islands. If I could steer by night I could escape them yet, but tonight there +will be no stars.” +</p> + +<p> +“My magic will not serve you here,” said the Egyptian. +</p> + +<p> +But Robert said, “My magic will not bring up great waves, but I can show +you how to steer without stars.” +</p> + +<p> +He took out the shilling compass, still, fortunately, in working order, that he +had bought off another boy at school for fivepence, a piece of indiarubber, a +strip of whalebone, and half a stick of red sealing-wax. +</p> + +<p> +And he showed Pheles how it worked. And Pheles wondered at the compass’s +magic truth. +</p> + +<p> +“I will give it to you,” Robert said, “in return for that +charm about your neck.” +</p> + +<p> +Pheles made no answer. He first laughed, snatched the compass from +Robert’s hand, and turned away still laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Be comforted,” the Priest whispered, “our time will +come.” +</p> + +<p> +The dusk deepened, and Pheles, crouched beside a dim lantern, steered by the +shilling compass from the Crystal Palace. +</p> + +<p> +No one ever knew how the other ship sailed, but suddenly, in the deep night, +the look-out man at the stern cried out in a terrible voice— +</p> + +<p> +“She is close upon us!” +</p> + +<p> +“And we,” said Pheles, “are close to the harbour.” He +was silent a moment, then suddenly he altered the ship’s course, and then +he stood up and spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Good friends and gentlemen,” he said, “who are bound with me +in this brave venture by our King’s command, the false, foreign ship is +close on our heels. If we land, they land, and only the gods know whether they +might not beat us in fight, and themselves survive to carry back the tale of +Tyre’s secret island to enrich their own miserable land. Shall this +be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” cried the half-dozen men near him. The slaves were rowing +hard below and could not hear his words. +</p> + +<p> +The Egyptian leaped upon him; suddenly, fiercely, as a wild beast leaps. +“Give me back my Amulet,” he cried, and caught at the charm. The +chain that held it snapped, and it lay in the Priest’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +Pheles laughed, standing balanced to the leap of the ship that answered the +oarstroke. +</p> + +<p> +“This is no time for charms and mummeries,” he said. +“We’ve lived like men, and we’ll die like gentlemen for the +honour and glory of Tyre, our splendid city. ‘Tyre, Tyre for ever! +It’s Tyre that rules the waves.’ I steer her straight for the +Dragon rocks, and we go down for our city, as brave men should. The creeping +cowards who follow shall go down as slaves—and slaves they shall be to +us—when we live again. Tyre, Tyre for ever!” +</p> + +<p> +A great shout went up, and the slaves below joined in it. +</p> + +<p> +“Quick, the Amulet,” cried Anthea, and held it up. Rekh-marā held +up the one he had snatched from Pheles. The word was spoken, and the two great +arches grew on the plunging ship in the shrieking wind under the dark sky. From +each Amulet a great and beautiful green light streamed and shone far out over +the waves. It illuminated, too, the black faces and jagged teeth of the great +rocks that lay not two ships’ lengths from the boat’s peaked nose. +</p> + +<p> +“Tyre, Tyre for ever! It’s Tyre that rules the waves!” the +voices of the doomed rose in a triumphant shout. The children scrambled through +the arch, and stood trembling and blinking in the Fitzroy Street parlour, and +in their ears still sounded the whistle of the wind, and the rattle of the +oars, the crash of the ships bow on the rocks, and the last shout of the brave +gentlemen-adventurers who went to their deaths singing, for the sake of the +city they loved. +</p> + +<p> +“And so we’ve lost the other half of the Amulet again,” said +Anthea, when they had told the Psammead all about it. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, pooh!” said the Psammead. “That wasn’t the +other half. It was the same half that you’ve got—the one that +wasn’t crushed and lost.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how could it be the same?” said Anthea gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, not exactly, of course. The one you’ve got is a good many +years older, but at any rate it’s not the other one. What did you say +when you wished?” +</p> + +<p> +“I forget,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t,” said the Psammead. “You said, ‘Take us +where <i>you</i> are’—and it did, so you see it was the same +half.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“But you mark my words,” the Psammead went on, “you’ll +have trouble with that Priest yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, he was quite friendly,” said Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“All the same you’d better beware of the Reverend Rekh-marā.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m sick of the Amulet,” said Cyril, “we shall +never get it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes we shall,” said Robert. “Don’t you remember +December 3rd?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jinks!” said Cyril, “I’d forgotten that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe it,” said Jane, “and I don’t +feel at all well.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I were you,” said the Psammead, “I should not go out into +the Past again till that date. You’ll find it safer not to go where +you’re likely to meet that Egyptian any more just at present.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course we’ll do as you say,” said Anthea soothingly, +“though there’s something about his face that I really do +like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, you don’t want to run after him, I suppose,” snapped +the Psammead. “You wait till the 3rd, and then see what happens.” +</p> + +<p> +Cyril and Jane were feeling far from well, Anthea was always obliging, so +Robert was overruled. And they promised. And none of them, not even the +Psammead, at all foresaw, as you no doubt do quite plainly, exactly what it was +that <i>would</i> happen on that memorable date. +</p> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +THE HEART’S DESIRE</h2> + +<p> +If I only had time I could tell you lots of things. For instance, how, in spite +of the advice of the Psammead, the four children did, one very wet day, go +through their Amulet Arch into the golden desert, and there find the great +Temple of Baalbec and meet with the Phœnix whom they never thought to see +again. And how the Phœnix did not remember them at all until it went into a +sort of prophetic trance—if that can be called remembering. But, alas! I +<i>haven’t</i> time, so I must leave all that out though it was a +wonderfully thrilling adventure. I must leave out, too, all about the visit of +the children to the Hippodrome with the Psammead in its travelling bag, and +about how the wishes of the people round about them were granted so suddenly +and surprisingly that at last the Psammead had to be taken hurriedly home by +Anthea, who consequently missed half the performance. Then there was the time +when, Nurse having gone to tea with a friend out Ivalunk way, they were playing +“devil in the dark”—and in the midst of that most creepy +pastime the postman’s knock frightened Jane nearly out of her life. She +took in the letters, however, and put them in the back of the hat-stand drawer, +so that they should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of them +again for weeks and weeks. +</p> + +<p> +One really good thing happened when they took the Psammead to a magic-lantern +show and lecture at the boys’ school at Camden Town. The lecture was all +about our soldiers in South Africa. And the lecturer ended up by saying, +“And I hope every boy in this room has in his heart the seeds of courage +and heroism and self-sacrifice, and I wish that every one of you may grow up to +be noble and brave and unselfish, worthy citizens of this great Empire for whom +our soldiers have freely given their lives.” +</p> + +<p> +And, of course, this came true—which was a distinct score for Camden +Town. +</p> + +<p> +As Anthea said, it was unlucky that the lecturer said boys, because now she and +Jane would have to be noble and unselfish, if at all, without any outside help. +But Jane said, “I daresay we are already because of our beautiful +natures. It’s only boys that have to be made brave by +magic”—which nearly led to a first-class row. +</p> + +<p> +And I daresay you would like to know all about the affair of the fishing rod, +and the fish-hooks, and the cook next door—which was amusing from some +points of view, though not perhaps the cook’s—but there really is +no time even for that. +</p> + +<p> +The only thing that there’s time to tell about is the Adventure of +Maskelyne and Cooke’s, and the Unexpected Apparition—which is also +the beginning of the end. +</p> + +<p> +It was Nurse who broke into the gloomy music of the autumn rain on the window +panes by suggesting a visit to the Egyptian Hall, England’s Home of +Mystery. Though they had good, but private reasons to know that their own +particular personal mystery was of a very different brand, the four all +brightened at the idea. All children, as well as a good many grown-ups, love +conjuring. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s in Piccadilly,” said old Nurse, carefully counting out +the proper number of shillings into Cyril’s hand, “not so very far +down on the left from the Circus. There’s big pillars outside, something +like Carter’s seed place in Holborn, as used to be Day and Martin’s +blacking when I was a gell. And something like Euston Station, only not so +big.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” said everybody. +</p> + +<p> +So they started. +</p> + +<p> +But though they walked along the left-hand side of Piccadilly they saw no +pillared building that was at all like Carter’s seed warehouse or Euston +Station or England’s Home of Mystery as they remembered it. +</p> + +<p> +At last they stopped a hurried lady, and asked her the way to Maskelyne and +Cooke’s. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she said, pushing past them. +“I always shop at the Stores.” Which just shows, as Jane said, how +ignorant grown-up people are. +</p> + +<p> +It was a policeman who at last explained to them that England’s Mysteries +are now appropriately enough enacted at St George’s Hall. So they tramped +to Langham Place, and missed the first two items in the programme. But they +were in time for the most wonderful magic appearances and disappearances, which +they could hardly believe—even with all their knowledge of a larger +magic—was not really magic after all. +</p> + +<p> +“If only the Babylonians could have seen <i>this</i> conjuring,” +whispered Cyril. “It takes the shine out of their old conjurer, +doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” said Anthea and several other members of the audience. +</p> + +<p> +Now there was a vacant seat next to Robert. And it was when all eyes were fixed +on the stage where Mr Devant was pouring out glasses of all sorts of different +things to drink, out of one kettle with one spout, and the audience were +delightedly tasting them, that Robert felt someone in that vacant seat. He did +not feel someone sit down in it. It was just that one moment there was no one +sitting there, and the next moment, suddenly, there was someone. +</p> + +<p> +Robert turned. The someone who had suddenly filled that empty place was +Rekh-marā, the Priest of Amen! +</p> + +<p> +Though the eyes of the audience were fixed on Mr David Devant, Mr David +Devant’s eyes were fixed on the audience. And it happened that his eyes +were more particularly fixed on that empty chair. So that he saw quite plainly +the sudden appearance, from nowhere, of the Egyptian Priest. +</p> + +<p> +“A jolly good trick,” he said to himself, “and worked under +my own eyes, in my own hall. I’ll find out how that’s done.” +He had never seen a trick that he could not do himself if he tried. +</p> + +<p> +By this time a good many eyes in the audience had turned on the clean-shaven, +curiously-dressed figure of the Egyptian Priest. +</p> + +<p> +“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr Devant, rising to the occasion, +“this is a trick I have never before performed. The empty seat, third +from the end, second row, gallery—you will now find occupied by an +Ancient Egyptian, warranted genuine.” +</p> + +<p> +He little knew how true his words were. +</p> + +<p> +And now all eyes were turned on the Priest and the children, and the whole +audience, after a moment’s breathless surprise, shouted applause. Only +the lady on the other side of Rekh-marā drew back a little. She <i>knew</i> no +one had passed her, and, as she said later, over tea and cold tongue, “it +was that sudden it made her flesh creep.” +</p> + +<p> +Rekh-marā seemed very much annoyed at the notice he was exciting. +</p> + +<p> +“Come out of this crowd,” he whispered to Robert. “I must +talk with you apart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” Jane whispered. “I did so want to see the Mascot +Moth, and the Ventriloquist.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get here?” was Robert’s return whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get to Egypt and to Tyre?” retorted Rekh-marā. +“Come, let us leave this crowd.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no help for it, I suppose,” Robert shrugged angrily. +But they all got up. +</p> + +<p> +“Confederates!” said a man in the row behind. “Now they go +round to the back and take part in the next scene.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we did,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Confederate yourself!” said Cyril. And so they got away, the +audience applauding to the last. +</p> + +<p> +In the vestibule of St George’s Hall they disguised Rekh-marā as well as +they could, but even with Robert’s hat and Cyril’s Inverness cape +he was too striking a figure for foot-exercise in the London streets. It had to +be a cab, and it took the last, least money of all of them. They stopped the +cab a few doors from home, and then the girls went in and engaged old +Nurse’s attention by an account of the conjuring and a fervent entreaty +for dripping-toast with their tea, leaving the front door open so that while +Nurse was talking to them the boys could creep quietly in with Rekh-marā and +smuggle him, unseen, up the stairs into their bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +When the girls came up they found the Egyptian Priest sitting on the side of +Cyril’s bed, his hands on his knees, looking like a statue of a king. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” said Cyril impatiently. “He won’t begin till +we’re all here. And shut the door, can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +When the door was shut the Egyptian said— +</p> + +<p> +“My interests and yours are one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very interesting,” said Cyril, “and it’ll be a jolly +sight more interesting if you keep following us about in a decent country with +no more clothes on than <i>that!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Peace,” said the Priest. “What is this country? and what is +this <i>time?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“The country’s England,” said Anthea, “and the +time’s about 6,000 years later than <i>your</i> time.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Amulet, then,” said the Priest, deeply thoughtful, +“gives the power to move to and fro in time as well as in space?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s about it,” said Cyril gruffly. “Look here, +it’ll be tea-time directly. What are we to do with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have one-half of the Amulet, I the other,” said Rekh-marā. +“All that is now needed is the pin to join them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think it,” said Robert. “The half +you’ve got is the same half as the one we’ve got.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the same thing cannot be in the same place and the same time, and +yet be not one, but twain,” said the Priest. “See, here is my +half.” He laid it on the Marcella counterpane. “Where is +yours?” +</p> + +<p> +Jane watching the eyes of the others, unfastened the string of the Amulet and +laid it on the bed, but too far off for the Priest to seize it, even if he had +been so dishonourable. Cyril and Robert stood beside him, ready to spring on +him if one of his hands had moved but ever so little towards the magic treasure +that was theirs. But his hands did not move, only his eyes opened very wide, +and so did everyone else’s for the Amulet the Priest had now quivered and +shook; and then, as steel is drawn to the magnet, it was drawn across the white +counterpane, nearer and nearer to the Amulet, warm from the neck of Jane. And +then, as one drop of water mingles with another on a rain-wrinkled window-pane, +as one bead of quick-silver is drawn into another bead, Rekh-marā’s +Amulet slipped into the other one, and, behold! there was no more but the one +Amulet! +</p> + +<p> +“Black magic!” cried Rekh-marā, and sprang forward to snatch the +Amulet that had swallowed his. But Anthea caught it up, and at the same moment +the Priest was jerked back by a rope thrown over his head. It drew, tightened +with the pull of his forward leap, and bound his elbows to his sides. Before he +had time to use his strength to free himself, Robert had knotted the cord +behind him and tied it to the bedpost. Then the four children, overcoming the +priest’s wrigglings and kickings, tied his legs with more rope. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought,” said Robert, breathing hard, and drawing the last knot +tight, “he’d have a try for <i>Ours</i>, so I got the ropes out of +the box-room, so as to be ready.” +</p> + +<p> +The girls, with rather white faces, applauded his foresight. +</p> + +<p> +“Loosen these bonds!” cried Rekh-marā in fury, “before I +blast you with the seven secret curses of Amen-Rā!” +</p> + +<p> +“We shouldn’t be likely to loose them <i>after</i>,” Robert +retorted. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t quarrel!” said Anthea desperately. “Look +here, he <i>has</i> just as much right to the thing as we have. This,” +she took up the Amulet that had swallowed the other one, “this has got +his in it as well as being ours. Let’s go shares.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go!” cried the Priest, writhing. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here,” said Robert, “if you make a row we can just +open that window and call the police—the guards, you know—and tell +them you’ve been trying to rob us. <i>Now</i> will you shut up and listen +to reason?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” said Rekh-marā sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered counsel had been held in +the far corner by the washhand-stand and the towel-horse, a counsel rather long +and very earnest. +</p> + +<p> +At last Anthea detached herself from the group, and went back to the Priest. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” she said in her kind little voice, “we want to +be friends. We want to help you. Let’s make a treaty. Let’s join +together to <i>get</i> the Amulet—the whole one, I mean. And then it +shall belong to you as much as to us, and we shall all get our hearts’ +desire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fair words,” said the Priest, “grow no onions.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>We</i> say, ‘Butter no parsnips’,” Jane put in. +“But don’t you see we <i>want</i> to be fair? Only we want to bind +you in the chains of honour and upright dealing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you deal fairly by us?” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” said the Priest. “By the sacred, secret name that +is written under the Altar of Amen-Rā, I will deal fairly by you. Will you, +too, take the oath of honourable partnership?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Anthea, on the instant, and added rather rashly, +“We don’t swear in England, except in police courts, where the +guards are, you know, and you don’t want to go there. But when we +<i>say</i> we’ll do a thing—it’s the same as an oath to +us—we do it. You trust us, and we’ll trust you.” She began to +unbind his legs, and the boys hastened to untie his arms. +</p> + +<p> +When he was free he stood up, stretched his arms, and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” he said, “I am stronger than you and my oath is void. +I have sworn by nothing, and my oath is nothing likewise. For there <i>is</i> +no secret, sacred name under the altar of Amen-Rā.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes there is!” said a voice from under the bed. Everyone +started—Rekh-marā most of all. +</p> + +<p> +Cyril stooped and pulled out the bath of sand where the Psammead slept. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know everything, though you <i>are</i> a Divine Father +of the Temple of Amen,” said the Psammead shaking itself till the sand +fell tinkling on the bath edge. “There <i>is</i> a secret, sacred name +beneath the altar of Amen-Rā. Shall I call on that name?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” cried the Priest in terror. “No,” said Jane, +too. “Don’t let’s have any calling names.” +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” said Rekh-marā, who had turned very white indeed under +his natural brownness, “I was only going to say that though there +isn’t any name under—” +</p> + +<p> +“There <i>is</i>,” said the Psammead threateningly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, even if there <i>wasn’t</i>, I will be bound by the wordless +oath of your strangely upright land, and having said that I will be your +friend—I will be it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that’s all right,” said the Psammead; “and +there’s the tea-bell. What are you going to do with your distinguished +partner? He can’t go down to tea like that, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see we can’t do anything till the 3rd of December,” said +Anthea, “that’s when we are to find the whole charm. What can we do +with Rekh-marā till then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Box-room,” said Cyril briefly, “and smuggle up his meals. It +will be rather fun.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like a fleeing Cavalier concealed from exasperated Roundheads,” +said Robert. “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +So Rekh-marā was taken up to the box-room and made as comfortable as possible +in a snug nook between an old nursery fender and the wreck of a big +four-poster. They gave him a big rag-bag to sit on, and an old, moth-eaten fur +coat off the nail on the door to keep him warm. And when they had had their own +tea they took him some. He did not like the tea at all, but he liked the bread +and butter, and cake that went with it. They took it in turns to sit with him +during the evening, and left him fairly happy and quite settled for the night. +</p> + +<p> +But when they went up in the morning with a kipper, a quarter of which each of +them had gone without at breakfast, Rekh-marā was gone! There was the cosy +corner with the rag-bag, and the moth-eaten fur coat—but the cosy corner +was empty. +</p> + +<p> +“Good riddance!” was naturally the first delightful thought in each +mind. The second was less pleasing, because everyone at once remembered that +since his Amulet had been swallowed up by theirs—which hung once more +round the neck of Jane—he could have no possible means of returning to +his Egyptian past. Therefore he must be still in England, and probably +somewhere quite near them, plotting mischief. +</p> + +<p> +The attic was searched, to prevent mistakes, but quite vainly. +</p> + +<p> +“The best thing we can do,” said Cyril, “is to go through the +half Amulet straight away, get the whole Amulet, and come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” Anthea hesitated. “Would that be quite +fair? Perhaps he isn’t really a base deceiver. Perhaps something’s +happened to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Happened?” said Cyril, “not it! Besides, what <i>could</i> +happen?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Anthea. “Perhaps burglars came in +the night, and accidentally killed him, and took away the—all that was +mortal of him, you know—to avoid discovery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or perhaps,” said Cyril, “they hid the—all that was +mortal, in one of those big trunks in the box-room. <i>Shall we go back and +look?</i>” he added grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” Jane shuddered. “Let’s go and tell the +Psammead and see what it says.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Anthea, “let’s ask the learned gentleman. If +anything <i>has</i> happened to Rekh-marā a gentleman’s advice would be +more useful than a Psammead’s. And the learned gentleman’ll only +think it’s a dream, like he always does.” +</p> + +<p> +They tapped at the door, and on the “Come in” entered. The learned +gentleman was sitting in front of his untasted breakfast. Opposite him, in the +easy chair, sat Rekh-marā! +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” said the learned gentleman very earnestly, “please, +hush! or the dream will go. I am learning... Oh, what have I not learned in the +last hour!” +</p> + +<p> +“In the grey dawn,” said the Priest, “I left my hiding-place, +and finding myself among these treasures from my own country, I remained. I +feel more at home here somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I know it’s a dream,” said the learned gentleman +feverishly, “but, oh, ye gods! what a dream! By Jove!...” +</p> + +<p> +“Call not upon the gods,” said the Priest, “lest ye raise +greater ones than ye can control. Already,” he explained to the children, +“he and I are as brothers, and his welfare is dear to me as my +own.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has told me,” the learned gentleman began, but Robert +interrupted. This was no moment for manners. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you told him,” he asked the Priest, “all about the +Amulet?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Rekh-marā. +</p> + +<p> +“Then tell him now. He is very learned. Perhaps he can tell us what to +do.” +</p> + +<p> +Rekh-marā hesitated, then told—and, oddly enough, none of the children +ever could remember afterwards what it was that he did tell. Perhaps he used +some magic to prevent their remembering. +</p> + +<p> +When he had done the learned gentleman was silent, leaning his elbow on the +table and his head on his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Jimmy,” said Anthea gently, “don’t worry about +it. We are sure to find it today, somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Rekh-marā, “and perhaps, with it, Death.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s to bring us our hearts’ desire,” said Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows,” said the Priest, “what things undreamed-of and +infinitely desirable lie beyond the dark gates?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>don’t</i>,” said Jane, almost whimpering. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman raised his head suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not,” he suggested, “go back into the Past? At a moment +when the Amulet is unwatched. Wish to be with it, and that it shall be under +your hand.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the simplest thing in the world! And yet none of them had ever thought +of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” cried Rekh-marā, leaping up. “Come <i>now!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“May—may I come?” the learned gentleman timidly asked. +“It’s only a dream, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, and welcome, oh brother,” Rekh-marā was beginning, but Cyril +and Robert with one voice cried, “<i>No</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“You weren’t with us in Atlantis,” Robert added, “or +you’d know better than to let him come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Jimmy,” said Anthea, “please don’t ask to come. +We’ll go and be back again before you have time to know that we’re +gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“We must keep together,” said Rekh-marā, “since there is but +one perfect Amulet to which I and these children have equal claims.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane held up the Amulet—Rekh-marā went first—and they all passed +through the great arch into which the Amulet grew at the Name of Power. +</p> + +<p> +The learned gentleman saw through the arch a darkness lighted by smoky gleams. +He rubbed his eyes. And he only rubbed them for ten seconds. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The children and the Priest were in a small, dark chamber. A square doorway of +massive stone let in gleams of shifting light, and the sound of many voices +chanting a slow, strange hymn. They stood listening. Now and then the chant +quickened and the light grew brighter, as though fuel had been thrown on a +fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are we?” whispered Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +“And when?” whispered Robert. +</p> + +<p> +“This is some shrine near the beginnings of belief,” said the +Egyptian shivering. “Take the Amulet and come away. It is cold here in +the morning of the world.” +</p> + +<p> +And then Jane felt that her hand was on a slab or table of stone, and, under +her hand, something that felt like the charm that had so long hung round her +neck, only it was thicker. Twice as thick. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s <i>here!</i>” she said, “I’ve got +it!” And she hardly knew the sound of her own voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Come away,” repeated Rekh-marā. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we could see more of this Temple,” said Robert resistingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Come away,” the Priest urged, “there is death all about, and +strong magic. Listen.” +</p> + +<p> +The chanting voices seemed to have grown louder and fiercer, and light +stronger. +</p> + +<p> +“They are coming!” cried Rekh-marā. “Quick, quick, the +Amulet!” +</p> + +<p> +Jane held it up. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“What a long time you’ve been rubbing your eyes!” said +Anthea; “don’t you see we’ve got back?” The learned +gentleman merely stared at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Anthea—Miss Jane!” It was Nurse’s voice, very +much higher and squeaky and more exalted than usual. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, bother!” said everyone. Cyril adding, “You just go on +with the dream for a sec, Mr Jimmy, we’ll be back directly. +Nurse’ll come up if we don’t. <i>She</i> wouldn’t think +Rekh-marā was a dream.” +</p> + +<p> +Then they went down. Nurse was in the hall, an orange envelope in one hand, and +a pink paper in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Your Pa and Ma’s come home. ‘Reach London 11.15. Prepare +rooms as directed in letter’, and signed in their two names.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hooray! hooray! hooray!” shouted the boys and Jane. But Anthea +could not shout, she was nearer crying. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she said almost in a whisper, “then it <i>was</i> true. +And we <i>have</i> got our hearts’ desire.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t understand about the letter,” Nurse was saying. +“I haven’t <i>had</i> no letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Oh!</i>” said Jane in a queer voice, “I wonder whether it +was one of those... they came that night—you know, when we were playing +‘devil in the dark’—and I put them in the hat-stand drawer, +behind the clothes-brushes and”—she pulled out the drawer as she +spoke—“and here they are!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a letter for Nurse and one for the children. The letters told how +Father had done being a war-correspondent and was coming home; and how Mother +and The Lamb were going to meet him in Italy and all come home together; and +how The Lamb and Mother were quite well; and how a telegram would be sent to +tell the day and the hour of their home-coming. +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy me!” said old Nurse. “I declare if it’s not too +bad of you, Miss Jane. I shall have a nice to-do getting things straight for +your Pa and Ma.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind, Nurse,” said Jane, hugging her; “isn’t +it just too lovely for anything!” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll come and help you,” said Cyril. “There’s +just something upstairs we’ve got to settle up, and then we’ll all +come and help you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get along with you,” said old Nurse, but she laughed jollily. +“Nice help <i>you’d</i> be. I know you. And it’s ten +o’clock now.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +There was, in fact, something upstairs that they had to settle. Quite a +considerable something, too. And it took much longer than they expected. +</p> + +<p> +A hasty rush into the boys’ room secured the Psammead, very sandy and +very cross. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter how cross and sandy it is though,” said +Anthea, “it ought to be there at the final council.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll give the learned gentleman fits, I expect,” said +Robert, “when he sees it.” +</p> + +<p> +But it didn’t. +</p> + +<p> +“The dream is growing more and more wonderful,” he exclaimed, when +the Psammead had been explained to him by Rekh-marā. “I have dreamed this +beast before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Robert, “Jane has got the half Amulet and +I’ve got the whole. Show up, Jane.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane untied the string and laid her half Amulet on the table, littered with +dusty papers, and the clay cylinders marked all over with little marks like the +little prints of birds’ little feet. +</p> + +<p> +Robert laid down the whole Amulet, and Anthea gently restrained the eager hand +of the learned gentleman as it reached out yearningly towards the +“perfect specimen”. +</p> + +<p> +And then, just as before on the Marcella quilt, so now on the dusty litter of +papers and curiosities, the half Amulet quivered and shook, and then, as steel +is drawn to a magnet, it was drawn across the dusty manuscripts, nearer and +nearer to the perfect Amulet, warm from the pocket of Robert. And then, as one +drop of water mingles with another when the panes of the window are wrinkled +with rain, as one bead of mercury is drawn into another bead, the half Amulet, +that was the children’s and was also Rekh-marā’s,—slipped +into the whole Amulet, and, behold! there was only one—the perfect and +ultimate Charm. +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>that’s</i> all right,” said the Psammead, breaking a +breathless silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Anthea, “and we’ve got our hearts’ +desire. Father and Mother and The Lamb are coming home today.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what about me?” said Rekh-marā. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>is</i> your heart’s desire?” Anthea asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Great and deep learning,” said the Priest, without a +moment’s hesitation. “A learning greater and deeper than that of +any man of my land and my time. But learning too great is useless. If I go back +to my own land and my own age, who will believe my tales of what I have seen in +the future? Let me stay here, be the great knower of all that has been, in that +our time, so living to me, so old to you, about which your learned men +speculate unceasingly, and often, <i>he</i> tells me, vainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I were you,” said the Psammead, “I should ask the Amulet +about that. It’s a dangerous thing, trying to live in a time that’s +not your own. You can’t breathe an air that’s thousands of +centuries ahead of your lungs without feeling the effects of it, sooner or +later. Prepare the mystic circle and consult the Amulet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>what</i> a dream!” cried the learned gentleman. “Dear +children, if you love me—and I think you do, in dreams and out of +them—prepare the mystic circle and consult the Amulet!” +</p> + +<p> +They did. As once before, when the sun had shone in August splendour, they +crouched in a circle on the floor. Now the air outside was thick and yellow +with the fog that by some strange decree always attends the Cattle Show week. +And in the street costers were shouting. “Ur Hekau Setcheh,” Jane +said the Name of Power. And instantly the light went out, and all the sounds +went out too, so that there was a silence and a darkness, both deeper than any +darkness or silence that you have ever even dreamed of imagining. It was like +being deaf or blind, only darker and quieter even than that. +</p> + +<p> +Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a voice. The light +was too faint to see anything by, and the voice was too small for you to hear +what it said. But the light and the voice grew. And the light was the light +that no man may look on and live, and the voice was the sweetest and most +terrible voice in the world. The children cast down their eyes. And so did +everyone. +</p> + +<p> +“I speak,” said the voice. “What is it that you would +hear?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“What are we to do about Rekh-marā?” said Robert suddenly and +abruptly. “Shall he go back through the Amulet to his own time, +or—” +</p> + +<p> +“No one can pass through the Amulet now,” said the beautiful, +terrible voice, “to any land or any time. Only when it was imperfect +could such things be. But men may pass through the perfect charm to the perfect +union, which is not of time or space.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you be so very kind,” said Anthea tremulously, “as to +speak so that we can understand you? The Psammead said something about +Rekh-marā not being able to live here, and if he can’t get +back—” She stopped, her heart was beating desperately in her +throat, as it seemed. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody can continue to live in a land and in a time not +appointed,” said the voice of glorious sweetness. “But a soul may +live, if in that other time and land there be found a soul so akin to it as to +offer it refuge, in the body of that land and time, that thus they two may be +one soul in one body.” +</p> + +<p> +The children exchanged discouraged glances. But the eyes of Rekh-marā and the +learned gentleman met, and were kind to each other, and promised each other +many things, secret and sacred and very beautiful. +</p> + +<p> +Anthea saw the look. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but,” she said, without at all meaning to say it, “dear +Jimmy’s soul isn’t at all like Rekh-marā’s. I’m certain +it isn’t. I don’t want to be rude, but it <i>isn’t</i>, you +know. Dear Jimmy’s soul is as good as gold, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing that is not good can pass beneath the double arch of my perfect +Amulet,” said the voice. “If both are willing, say the word of +Power, and let the two souls become one for ever and ever more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I?” asked Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +The voices were those of the Egyptian Priest and the learned gentleman, and the +voices were eager, alive, thrilled with hope and the desire of great things. +</p> + +<p> +So Jane took the Amulet from Robert and held it up between the two men, and +said, for the last time, the word of Power. +</p> + +<p> +“Ur Hekau Setcheh.” +</p> + +<p> +The perfect Amulet grew into a double arch; the two arches leaned to each other +Λ making a great A. +</p> + +<p> +“A stands for Amen,” whispered Jane; “what he was a priest +of.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” breathed Anthea. +</p> + +<p> +The great double arch glowed in and through the green light that had been there +since the Name of Power had first been spoken—it glowed with a light more +bright yet more soft than the other light—a glory and splendour and +sweetness unspeakable. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” cried Rekh-marā, holding out his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” cried the learned gentleman, and he also held out his +hands. +</p> + +<p> +Each moved forward under the glowing, glorious arch of the perfect Amulet. +</p> + +<p> +Then Rekh-marā quavered and shook, and as steel is drawn to a magnet he was +drawn, under the arch of magic, nearer and nearer to the learned gentleman. +And, as one drop of water mingles with another, when the window-glass is +rain-wrinkled, as one quick-silver bead is drawn to another quick-silver bead, +Rekh-marā, Divine Father of the Temple of Amen-Rā, was drawn into, slipped +into, disappeared into, and was one with Jimmy, the good, the beloved, the +learned gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone. The fog has +passed away like a dream. +</p> + +<p> +The Amulet was there—little and complete in Jane’s hand, and there +were the other children and the Psammead, and the learned gentleman. But +Rekh-marā—or the body of Rekh-marā—was not there any more. As for +his soul... +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the horrid thing!” cried Robert, and put his foot on a +centipede as long as your finger, that crawled and wriggled and squirmed at the +learned gentleman’s feet. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That</i>,” said the Psammead, “was the evil in the soul +of Rekh-marā.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a deep silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Then Rekh-marā’s <i>him</i> now?” said Jane at last. +</p> + +<p> +“All that was good in Rekh-marā,” said the Psammead. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>He</i> ought to have his heart’s desire, too,” said +Anthea, in a sort of stubborn gentleness. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>His</i> heart’s desire,” said the Psammead, “is the +perfect Amulet you hold in your hand. Yes—and has been ever since he +first saw the broken half of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got ours,” said Anthea softly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the Psammead—its voice was crosser than they had +ever heard it—“your parents are coming home. And what’s to +become of <i>me?</i> I shall be found out, and made a show of, and degraded in +every possible way. I <i>know</i> they’ll make me go into +Parliament—hateful place—all mud and no sand. That beautiful +Baalbec temple in the desert! Plenty of good sand there, and no politics! I +wish I were there, safe in the Past—that I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you were,” said the learned gentleman absently, yet polite +as ever. +</p> + +<p> +The Psammead swelled itself up, turned its long snail’s eyes in one last +lingering look at Anthea—a loving look, she always said, and +thought—and—vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Anthea, after a silence, “I suppose it’s +happy. The only thing it ever did really care for was <i>sand</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear children,” said the learned gentleman, “I must have +fallen asleep. I’ve had the most extraordinary dream.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope it was a nice one,” said Cyril with courtesy. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.... I feel a new man after it. Absolutely a new man.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a ring at the front-door bell. The opening of a door. Voices. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s <i>them!</i>” cried Robert, and a thrill ran through +four hearts. +</p> + +<p> +“Here!” cried Anthea, snatching the Amulet from Jane and pressing +it into the hand of the learned gentleman. “Here—it’s +<i>yours</i>—your very own—a present from us, because you’re +Rekh-marā as well as... I mean, because you’re such a dear.” +</p> + +<p> +She hugged him briefly but fervently, and the four swept down the stairs to the +hall, where a cabman was bringing in boxes, and where, heavily disguised in +travelling cloaks and wraps, was their hearts’ +desire—three-fold—Mother, Father, and The Lamb. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Bless me!” said the learned gentleman, left alone, “bless +me! What a treasure! The dear children! It must be their affection that has +given me these luminous <i>aperçus</i>. I seem to see so many things +now—things I never saw before! The dear children! The dear, dear +children!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE AMULET ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 837-h.htm or 837-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/8/3/837/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c730e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #837 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/837) diff --git a/old/837.txt b/old/837.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..528d8ad --- /dev/null +++ b/old/837.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9278 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of the Amulet, by E. Nesbit + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Story of the Amulet + +Author: E. Nesbit + +Posting Date: August 6, 2008 [EBook #837] +Release Date: March, 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE AMULET *** + + + + +Produced by Jo Churcher + + + + + +THE STORY OF THE AMULET + +by E. Nesbit + + + + + TO + Dr Wallis Budge + of the British Museum as a + small token of gratitude for his + unfailing kindness and help + in the making of it + + + + +CONTENTS + + + 1. The Psammead + 2. The Half Amulet + 3. The Past + 4. Eight Thousand Years Ago + 5. The Fight in the Village + 6. The Way to Babylon + 7. 'The Deepest Dungeon Below the Castle Moat' + 8. The Queen in London + 9. Atlantis + 10. The Little Black Girl and Julius Caesar + 11. Before Pharaoh + 12. The Sorry-Present and the Expelled Little Boy + 13. The Shipwreck on the Tin Islands + 14. The Heart's Desire + + + + +CHAPTER 1. THE PSAMMEAD + +There were once four children who spent their summer holidays in a white +house, happily situated between a sandpit and a chalkpit. One day they +had the good fortune to find in the sandpit a strange creature. Its eyes +were on long horns like snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out +like telescopes. It had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was +shaped like a spider's and covered with thick soft fur--and it had hands +and feet like a monkey's. It told the children--whose names were +Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane--that it was a Psammead or sand-fairy. +(Psammead is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, old, old, and its +birthday was almost at the very beginning of everything. And it had +been buried in the sand for thousands of years. But it still kept its +fairylikeness, and part of this fairylikeness was its power to give +people whatever they wished for. You know fairies have always been able +to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane now found their wishes come +true; but, somehow, they never could think of just the right things to +wish for, and their wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed. In +the end their unwise wishings landed them in what Robert called 'a very +tight place indeed', and the Psammead consented to help them out of it +in return for their promise never never to ask it to grant them any more +wishes, and never to tell anyone about it, because it did not want to +be bothered to give wishes to anyone ever any more. At the moment of +parting Jane said politely-- + +'I wish we were going to see you again some day.' + +And the Psammead, touched by this friendly thought, granted the wish. +The book about all this is called Five Children and It, and it ends up +in a most tiresome way by saying-- + +'The children DID see the Psammead again, but it was not in the sandpit; +it was--but I must say no more--' + +The reason that nothing more could be said was that I had not then been +able to find out exactly when and where the children met the Psammead +again. Of course I knew they would meet it, because it was a beast of +its word, and when it said a thing would happen, that thing happened +without fail. How different from the people who tell us about what +weather it is going to be on Thursday next, in London, the South Coast, +and Channel! + +The summer holidays during which the Psammead had been found and +the wishes given had been wonderful holidays in the country, and the +children had the highest hopes of just such another holiday for the next +summer. The winter holidays were beguiled by the wonderful happenings +of The Phoenix and the Carpet, and the loss of these two treasures would +have left the children in despair, but for the splendid hope of their +next holiday in the country. The world, they felt, and indeed had some +reason to feel, was full of wonderful things--and they were really the +sort of people that wonderful things happen to. So they looked forward +to the summer holiday; but when it came everything was different, and +very, very horrid. Father had to go out to Manchuria to telegraph news +about the war to the tiresome paper he wrote for--the Daily Bellower, +or something like that, was its name. And Mother, poor dear Mother, was +away in Madeira, because she had been very ill. And The Lamb--I mean the +baby--was with her. And Aunt Emma, who was Mother's sister, had suddenly +married Uncle Reginald, who was Father's brother, and they had gone to +China, which is much too far off for you to expect to be asked to spend +the holidays in, however fond your aunt and uncle may be of you. So +the children were left in the care of old Nurse, who lived in Fitzroy +Street, near the British Museum, and though she was always very kind to +them, and indeed spoiled them far more than would be good for the most +grown-up of us, the four children felt perfectly wretched, and when +the cab had driven off with Father and all his boxes and guns and the +sheepskin, with blankets and the aluminium mess-kit inside it, the +stoutest heart quailed, and the girls broke down altogether, and sobbed +in each other's arms, while the boys each looked out of one of the long +gloomy windows of the parlour, and tried to pretend that no boy would be +such a muff as to cry. + +I hope you notice that they were not cowardly enough to cry till their +Father had gone; they knew he had quite enough to upset him without +that. But when he was gone everyone felt as if it had been trying not to +cry all its life, and that it must cry now, if it died for it. So they +cried. + +Tea--with shrimps and watercress--cheered them a little. The watercress +was arranged in a hedge round a fat glass salt-cellar, a tasteful device +they had never seen before. But it was not a cheerful meal. + +After tea Anthea went up to the room that had been Father's, and when +she saw how dreadfully he wasn't there, and remembered how every minute +was taking him further and further from her, and nearer and nearer to +the guns of the Russians, she cried a little more. Then she thought of +Mother, ill and alone, and perhaps at that very moment wanting a little +girl to put eau-de-cologne on her head, and make her sudden cups of tea, +and she cried more than ever. And then she remembered what Mother had +said, the night before she went away, about Anthea being the eldest +girl, and about trying to make the others happy, and things like that. +So she stopped crying, and thought instead. And when she had thought as +long as she could bear she washed her face and combed her hair, and went +down to the others, trying her best to look as though crying were an +exercise she had never even heard of. + +She found the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by +the efforts of Robert, who, to make the time pass, was pulling Jane's +hair--not hard, but just enough to tease. + +'Look here,' said Anthea. 'Let's have a palaver.' This word dated from +the awful day when Cyril had carelessly wished that there were Red +Indians in England--and there had been. The word brought back memories +of last summer holidays and everyone groaned; they thought of the white +house with the beautiful tangled garden--late roses, asters, marigold, +sweet mignonette, and feathery asparagus--of the wilderness which +someone had once meant to make into an orchard, but which was now, +as Father said, 'five acres of thistles haunted by the ghosts of baby +cherry-trees'. They thought of the view across the valley, where the +lime-kilns looked like Aladdin's palaces in the sunshine, and they +thought of their own sandpit, with its fringe of yellowy grasses and +pale-stringy-stalked wild flowers, and the little holes in the cliff +that were the little sand-martins' little front doors. And they thought +of the free fresh air smelling of thyme and sweetbriar, and the scent of +the wood-smoke from the cottages in the lane--and they looked round old +Nurse's stuffy parlour, and Jane said-- + +'Oh, how different it all is!' + +It was. Old Nurse had been in the habit of letting lodgings, till Father +gave her the children to take care of. And her rooms were furnished 'for +letting'. Now it is a very odd thing that no one ever seems to furnish +a room 'for letting' in a bit the same way as one would furnish it for +living in. This room had heavy dark red stuff curtains--the colour that +blood would not make a stain on--with coarse lace curtains inside. The +carpet was yellow, and violet, with bits of grey and brown oilcloth in +odd places. The fireplace had shavings and tinsel in it. There was +a very varnished mahogany chiffonier, or sideboard, with a lock that +wouldn't act. There were hard chairs--far too many of them--with crochet +antimacassars slipping off their seats, all of which sloped the wrong +way. The table wore a cloth of a cruel green colour with a yellow +chain-stitch pattern round it. Over the fireplace was a looking-glass +that made you look much uglier than you really were, however plain you +might be to begin with. Then there was a mantelboard with maroon plush +and wool fringe that did not match the plush; a dreary clock like a +black marble tomb--it was silent as the grave too, for it had long since +forgotten how to tick. And there were painted glass vases that never had +any flowers in, and a painted tambourine that no one ever played, and +painted brackets with nothing on them. + + 'And maple-framed engravings of the Queen, the Houses of + Parliament, the Plains of Heaven, and of a blunt-nosed + woodman's flat return.' + +There were two books--last December's Bradshaw, and an odd volume of +Plumridge's Commentary on Thessalonians. There were--but I cannot +dwell longer on this painful picture. It was indeed, as Jane said, very +different. + +'Let's have a palaver,' said Anthea again. + +'What about?' said Cyril, yawning. + +'There's nothing to have ANYTHING about,' said Robert kicking the leg of +the table miserably. + +'I don't want to play,' said Jane, and her tone was grumpy. + +Anthea tried very hard not to be cross. She succeeded. + +'Look here,' she said, 'don't think I want to be preachy or a beast in +any way, but I want to what Father calls define the situation. Do you +agree?' + +'Fire ahead,' said Cyril without enthusiasm. + +'Well then. We all know the reason we're staying here is because Nurse +couldn't leave her house on account of the poor learned gentleman on the +top-floor. And there was no one else Father could entrust to take care +of us--and you know it's taken a lot of money, Mother's going to Madeira +to be made well.' + +Jane sniffed miserably. + +'Yes, I know,' said Anthea in a hurry, 'but don't let's think about how +horrid it all is. I mean we can't go to things that cost a lot, but we +must do SOMETHING. And I know there are heaps of things you can see in +London without paying for them, and I thought we'd go and see them. We +are all quite old now, and we haven't got The Lamb--' + +Jane sniffed harder than before. + +'I mean no one can say "No" because of him, dear pet. And I thought +we MUST get Nurse to see how quite old we are, and let us go out by +ourselves, or else we shall never have any sort of a time at all. And I +vote we see everything there is, and let's begin by asking Nurse to give +us some bits of bread and we'll go to St James's Park. There are ducks +there, I know, we can feed them. Only we must make Nurse let us go by +ourselves.' + +'Hurrah for liberty!' said Robert, 'but she won't.' + +'Yes she will,' said Jane unexpectedly. '_I_ thought about that this +morning, and I asked Father, and he said yes; and what's more he told +old Nurse we might, only he said we must always say where we wanted to +go, and if it was right she would let us.' + +'Three cheers for thoughtful Jane,' cried Cyril, now roused at last from +his yawning despair. 'I say, let's go now.' + +So they went, old Nurse only begging them to be careful of crossings, +and to ask a policeman to assist in the more difficult cases. But they +were used to crossings, for they had lived in Camden Town and knew the +Kentish Town Road where the trams rush up and down like mad at all hours +of the day and night, and seem as though, if anything, they would rather +run over you than not. + +They had promised to be home by dark, but it was July, so dark would be +very late indeed, and long past bedtime. + +They started to walk to St James's Park, and all their pockets were +stuffed with bits of bread and the crusts of toast, to feed the ducks +with. They started, I repeat, but they never got there. + +Between Fitzroy Street and St James's Park there are a great many +streets, and, if you go the right way you will pass a great many shops +that you cannot possibly help stopping to look at. The children stopped +to look at several with gold-lace and beads and pictures and jewellery +and dresses, and hats, and oysters and lobsters in their windows, and +their sorrow did not seem nearly so impossible to bear as it had done in +the best parlour at No. 300, Fitzroy Street. + +Presently, by some wonderful chance turn of Robert's (who had been voted +Captain because the girls thought it would be good for him--and indeed +he thought so himself--and of course Cyril couldn't vote against him +because it would have looked like a mean jealousy), they came into the +little interesting criss-crossy streets that held the most interesting +shops of all--the shops where live things were sold. There was one shop +window entirely filled with cages, and all sorts of beautiful birds in +them. The children were delighted till they remembered how they had once +wished for wings themselves, and had had them--and then they felt how +desperately unhappy anything with wings must be if it is shut up in a +cage and not allowed to fly. + +'It must be fairly beastly to be a bird in a cage,' said Cyril. 'Come +on!' + +They went on, and Cyril tried to think out a scheme for making his +fortune as a gold-digger at Klondyke, and then buying all the caged +birds in the world and setting them free. Then they came to a shop that +sold cats, but the cats were in cages, and the children could not help +wishing someone would buy all the cats and put them on hearthrugs, which +are the proper places for cats. And there was the dog-shop, and that was +not a happy thing to look at either, because all the dogs were chained +or caged, and all the dogs, big and little, looked at the four children +with sad wistful eyes and wagged beseeching tails as if they were trying +to say, 'Buy me! buy me! buy me! and let me go for a walk with you; oh, +do buy me, and buy my poor brothers too! Do! do! do!' They almost said, +'Do! do! do!' plain to the ear, as they whined; all but one big Irish +terrier, and he growled when Jane patted him. + +'Grrrrr,' he seemed to say, as he looked at them from the back corner +of his eye--'YOU won't buy me. Nobody will--ever--I shall die chained +up--and I don't know that I care how soon it is, either!' + +I don't know that the children would have understood all this, only once +they had been in a besieged castle, so they knew how hateful it is to be +kept in when you want to get out. + +Of course they could not buy any of the dogs. They did, indeed, ask the +price of the very, very smallest, and it was sixty-five pounds--but that +was because it was a Japanese toy spaniel like the Queen once had her +portrait painted with, when she was only Princess of Wales. But the +children thought, if the smallest was all that money, the biggest would +run into thousands--so they went on. + +And they did not stop at any more cat or dog or bird shops, but passed +them by, and at last they came to a shop that seemed as though it only +sold creatures that did not much mind where they were--such as goldfish +and white mice, and sea-anemones and other aquarium beasts, and +lizards and toads, and hedgehogs and tortoises, and tame rabbits +and guinea-pigs. And there they stopped for a long time, and fed the +guinea-pigs with bits of bread through the cage-bars, and wondered +whether it would be possible to keep a sandy-coloured double-lop in the +basement of the house in Fitzroy Street. + +'I don't suppose old Nurse would mind VERY much,' said Jane. 'Rabbits +are most awfully tame sometimes. I expect it would know her voice and +follow her all about.' + +'She'd tumble over it twenty times a day,' said Cyril; 'now a snake--' + +'There aren't any snakes, said Robert hastily, 'and besides, I never +could cotton to snakes somehow--I wonder why.' + +'Worms are as bad,' said Anthea, 'and eels and slugs--I think it's +because we don't like things that haven't got legs.' + +'Father says snakes have got legs hidden away inside of them,' said +Robert. + +'Yes--and he says WE'VE got tails hidden away inside us--but it doesn't +either of it come to anything REALLY,' said Anthea. 'I hate things that +haven't any legs.' + +'It's worse when they have too many,' said Jane with a shudder, 'think +of centipedes!' + +They stood there on the pavement, a cause of some inconvenience to +the passersby, and thus beguiled the time with conversation. Cyril was +leaning his elbow on the top of a hutch that had seemed empty when they +had inspected the whole edifice of hutches one by one, and he was trying +to reawaken the interest of a hedgehog that had curled itself into a +ball earlier in the interview, when a small, soft voice just below his +elbow said, quietly, plainly and quite unmistakably--not in any squeak +or whine that had to be translated--but in downright common English-- + +'Buy me--do--please buy me!' + +Cyril started as though he had been pinched, and jumped a yard away from +the hutch. + +'Come back--oh, come back!' said the voice, rather louder but still +softly; 'stoop down and pretend to be tying up your bootlace--I see it's +undone, as usual.' + +Cyril mechanically obeyed. He knelt on one knee on the dry, hot dusty +pavement, peered into the darkness of the hutch and found himself face +to face with--the Psammead! + +It seemed much thinner than when he had last seen it. It was dusty and +dirty, and its fur was untidy and ragged. It had hunched itself up into +a miserable lump, and its long snail's eyes were drawn in quite tight so +that they hardly showed at all. + +'Listen,' said the Psammead, in a voice that sounded as though it would +begin to cry in a minute, 'I don't think the creature who keeps this +shop will ask a very high price for me. I've bitten him more than once, +and I've made myself look as common as I can. He's never had a glance +from my beautiful, beautiful eyes. Tell the others I'm here--but tell +them to look at some of those low, common beasts while I'm talking to +you. The creature inside mustn't think you care much about me, or he'll +put a price upon me far, far beyond your means. I remember in the dear +old days last summer you never had much money. Oh--I never thought I +should be so glad to see you--I never did.' It sniffed, and shot out its +long snail's eyes expressly to drop a tear well away from its fur. 'Tell +the others I'm here, and then I'll tell you exactly what to do about +buying me.' Cyril tied his bootlace into a hard knot, stood up and +addressed the others in firm tones-- + +'Look here,' he said, 'I'm not kidding--and I appeal to your honour,' an +appeal which in this family was never made in vain. 'Don't look at that +hutch--look at the white rat. Now you are not to look at that hutch +whatever I say.' + +He stood in front of it to prevent mistakes. + +'Now get yourselves ready for a great surprise. In that hutch there's +an old friend of ours--DON'T look!--Yes; it's the Psammead, the good old +Psammead! it wants us to buy it. It says you're not to look at it. Look +at the white rat and count your money! On your honour don't look!' + +The others responded nobly. They looked at the white rat till they quite +stared him out of countenance, so that he went and sat up on his hind +legs in a far corner and hid his eyes with his front paws, and pretended +he was washing his face. + +Cyril stooped again, busying himself with the other bootlace and +listened for the Psammead's further instructions. + +'Go in,' said the Psammead, 'and ask the price of lots of other things. +Then say, "What do you want for that monkey that's lost its tail--the +mangy old thing in the third hutch from the end." Oh--don't mind MY +feelings--call me a mangy monkey--I've tried hard enough to look like +one! I don't think he'll put a high price on me--I've bitten him eleven +times since I came here the day before yesterday. If he names a bigger +price than you can afford, say you wish you had the money.' + +'But you can't give us wishes. I've promised never to have another wish +from you,' said the bewildered Cyril. + +'Don't be a silly little idiot,' said the Sand-fairy in trembling but +affectionate tones, 'but find out how much money you've got between you, +and do exactly what I tell you.' + +Cyril, pointing a stiff and unmeaning finger at the white rat, so as to +pretend that its charms alone employed his tongue, explained matters to +the others, while the Psammead hunched itself, and bunched itself, +and did its very best to make itself look uninteresting. Then the four +children filed into the shop. + +'How much do you want for that white rat?' asked Cyril. + +'Eightpence,' was the answer. + +'And the guinea-pigs?' + +'Eighteenpence to five bob, according to the breed.' + +'And the lizards?' + +'Ninepence each.' + +'And toads?' + +'Fourpence. Now look here,' said the greasy owner of all this caged life +with a sudden ferocity which made the whole party back hurriedly on to +the wainscoting of hutches with which the shop was lined. 'Lookee here. +I ain't agoin' to have you a comin' in here a turnin' the whole place +outer winder, an' prizing every animile in the stock just for your +larks, so don't think it! If you're a buyer, BE a buyer--but I never +had a customer yet as wanted to buy mice, and lizards, and toads, and +guineas all at once. So hout you goes.' + +'Oh! wait a minute,' said the wretched Cyril, feeling how foolishly yet +well-meaningly he had carried out the Psammead's instructions. 'Just +tell me one thing. What do you want for the mangy old monkey in the +third hutch from the end?' + +The shopman only saw in this a new insult. + +'Mangy young monkey yourself,' said he; 'get along with your blooming +cheek. Hout you goes!' + +'Oh! don't be so cross,' said Jane, losing her head altogether, 'don't +you see he really DOES want to know THAT!' + +'Ho! does 'e indeed,' sneered the merchant. Then he scratched his ear +suspiciously, for he was a sharp business man, and he knew the ring of +truth when he heard it. His hand was bandaged, and three minutes +before he would have been glad to sell the 'mangy old monkey' for ten +shillings. Now--'Ho! 'e does, does 'e,' he said, 'then two pun ten's my +price. He's not got his fellow that monkey ain't, nor yet his match, +not this side of the equator, which he comes from. And the only one ever +seen in London. Ought to be in the Zoo. Two pun ten, down on the nail, +or hout you goes!' + +The children looked at each other--twenty-three shillings and fivepence +was all they had in the world, and it would have been merely three and +fivepence, but for the sovereign which Father had given to them 'between +them' at parting. 'We've only twenty-three shillings and fivepence,' +said Cyril, rattling the money in his pocket. + +'Twenty-three farthings and somebody's own cheek,' said the dealer, for +he did not believe that Cyril had so much money. + +There was a miserable pause. Then Anthea remembered, and said-- + +'Oh! I WISH I had two pounds ten.' + +'So do I, Miss, I'm sure,' said the man with bitter politeness; 'I wish +you 'ad, I'm sure!' + +Anthea's hand was on the counter, something seemed to slide under it. +She lifted it. There lay five bright half sovereigns. + +'Why, I HAVE got it after all,' she said; 'here's the money, now let's +have the Sammy,... the monkey I mean.' + +The dealer looked hard at the money, but he made haste to put it in his +pocket. + +'I only hope you come by it honest,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. +He scratched his ear again. + +'Well!' he said, 'I suppose I must let you have it, but it's worth +thribble the money, so it is--' + +He slowly led the way out to the hutch--opened the door gingerly, +and made a sudden fierce grab at the Psammead, which the Psammead +acknowledged in one last long lingering bite. + +'Here, take the brute,' said the shopman, squeezing the Psammead so +tight that he nearly choked it. 'It's bit me to the marrow, it have.' + +The man's eyes opened as Anthea held out her arms. + +'Don't blame me if it tears your face off its bones,' he said, and the +Psammead made a leap from his dirty horny hands, and Anthea caught it +in hers, which were not very clean, certainly, but at any rate were soft +and pink, and held it kindly and closely. + +'But you can't take it home like that,' Cyril said, 'we shall have a +crowd after us,' and indeed two errand boys and a policeman had already +collected. + +'I can't give you nothink only a paper-bag, like what we put the +tortoises in,' said the man grudgingly. + +So the whole party went into the shop, and the shopman's eyes nearly +came out of his head when, having given Anthea the largest paper-bag he +could find, he saw her hold it open, and the Psammead carefully creep +into it. 'Well!' he said, 'if that there don't beat cockfighting! But +p'raps you've met the brute afore.' + +'Yes,' said Cyril affably, 'he's an old friend of ours.' + +'If I'd a known that,' the man rejoined, 'you shouldn't a had him under +twice the money. 'Owever,' he added, as the children disappeared, 'I +ain't done so bad, seeing as I only give five bob for the beast. But +then there's the bites to take into account!' + +The children trembling in agitation and excitement, carried home the +Psammead, trembling in its paper-bag. + +When they got it home, Anthea nursed it, and stroked it, and would have +cried over it, if she hadn't remembered how it hated to be wet. + +When it recovered enough to speak, it said-- + +'Get me sand; silver sand from the oil and colour shop. And get me +plenty.' + +They got the sand, and they put it and the Psammead in the round bath +together, and it rubbed itself, and rolled itself, and shook itself and +scraped itself, and scratched itself, and preened itself, till it felt +clean and comfy, and then it scrabbled a hasty hole in the sand, and +went to sleep in it. + +The children hid the bath under the girls' bed, and had supper. Old +Nurse had got them a lovely supper of bread and butter and fried onions. +She was full of kind and delicate thoughts. + +When Anthea woke the next morning, the Psammead was snuggling down +between her shoulder and Jane's. + +'You have saved my life,' it said. 'I know that man would have thrown +cold water on me sooner or later, and then I should have died. I saw him +wash out a guinea-pig's hutch yesterday morning. I'm still frightfully +sleepy, I think I'll go back to sand for another nap. Wake the boys and +this dormouse of a Jane, and when you've had your breakfasts we'll have +a talk.' + +'Don't YOU want any breakfast?' asked Anthea. + +'I daresay I shall pick a bit presently,' it said; 'but sand is all I +care about--it's meat and drink to me, and coals and fire and wife and +children.' With these words it clambered down by the bedclothes and +scrambled back into the bath, where they heard it scratching itself out +of sight. + +'Well!' said Anthea, 'anyhow our holidays won't be dull NOW. We've found +the Psammead again.' + +'No,' said Jane, beginning to put on her stockings. 'We shan't be +dull--but it'll be only like having a pet dog now it can't give us +wishes.' + +'Oh, don't be so discontented,' said Anthea. 'If it can't do anything +else it can tell us about Megatheriums and things.' + + + +CHAPTER 2. THE HALF AMULET + +Long ago--that is to say last summer--the children, finding themselves +embarrassed by some wish which the Psammead had granted them, and which +the servants had not received in a proper spirit, had wished that the +servants might not notice the gifts which the Psammead gave. And when +they parted from the Psammead their last wish had been that they should +meet it again. Therefore they HAD met it (and it was jolly lucky for +the Psammead, as Robert pointed out). Now, of course, you see that +the Psammead's being where it was, was the consequence of one of their +wishes, and therefore was a Psammead-wish, and as such could not be +noticed by the servants. And it was soon plain that in the Psammead's +opinion old Nurse was still a servant, although she had now a house +of her own, for she never noticed the Psammead at all. And that was as +well, for she would never have consented to allow the girls to keep an +animal and a bath of sand under their bed. + +When breakfast had been cleared away--it was a very nice breakfast with +hot rolls to it, a luxury quite out of the common way--Anthea went and +dragged out the bath, and woke the Psammead. + +It stretched and shook itself. + +'You must have bolted your breakfast most unwholesomely,' it said, 'you +can't have been five minutes over it.' + +'We've been nearly an hour,' said Anthea. 'Come--you know you promised.' + +'Now look here,' said the Psammead, sitting back on the sand and +shooting out its long eyes suddenly, 'we'd better begin as we mean to +go on. It won't do to have any misunderstanding, so I tell you plainly +that--' + +'Oh, PLEASE,' Anthea pleaded, 'do wait till we get to the others. +They'll think it most awfully sneakish of me to talk to you without +them; do come down, there's a dear.' + +She knelt before the sand-bath and held out her arms. The Psammead must +have remembered how glad it had been to jump into those same little arms +only the day before, for it gave a little grudging grunt, and jumped +once more. + +Anthea wrapped it in her pinafore and carried it downstairs. It was +welcomed in a thrilling silence. At last Anthea said, 'Now then!' + +'What place is this?' asked the Psammead, shooting its eyes out and +turning them slowly round. + +'It's a sitting-room, of course,' said Robert. + +'Then I don't like it,' said the Psammead. + +'Never mind,' said Anthea kindly; 'we'll take you anywhere you like if +you want us to. What was it you were going to say upstairs when I said +the others wouldn't like it if I stayed talking to you without them?' + +It looked keenly at her, and she blushed. + +'Don't be silly,' it said sharply. 'Of course, it's quite natural that +you should like your brothers and sisters to know exactly how good and +unselfish you were.' + +'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane. 'Anthea was quite right. What was it +you were going to say when she stopped you?' + +'I'll tell you,' said the Psammead, 'since you're so anxious to know. I +was going to say this. You've saved my life--and I'm not ungrateful--but +it doesn't change your nature or mine. You're still very ignorant, and +rather silly, and I am worth a thousand of you any day of the week.' + +'Of course you are!' Anthea was beginning but it interrupted her. + +'It's very rude to interrupt,' it said; 'what I mean is that I'm not +going to stand any nonsense, and if you think what you've done is to +give you the right to pet me or make me demean myself by playing with +you, you'll find out that what you think doesn't matter a single penny. +See? It's what _I_ think that matters.' + +'I know,' said Cyril, 'it always was, if you remember.' + +'Well,' said the Psammead, 'then that's settled. We're to be treated as +we deserve. I with respect, and all of you with--but I don't wish to be +offensive. Do you want me to tell you how I got into that horrible den +you bought me out of? Oh, I'm not ungrateful! I haven't forgotten it and +I shan't forget it.' + +'Do tell us,' said Anthea. 'I know you're awfully clever, but even with +all your cleverness, I don't believe you can possibly know how--how +respectfully we do respect you. Don't we?' + +The others all said yes--and fidgeted in their chairs. Robert spoke the +wishes of all when he said-- + +'I do wish you'd go on.' So it sat up on the green-covered table and +went on. + +'When you'd gone away,' it said, 'I went to sand for a bit, and slept. I +was tired out with all your silly wishes, and I felt as though I hadn't +really been to sand for a year.' + +'To sand?' Jane repeated. + +'Where I sleep. You go to bed. I go to sand.' + +Jane yawned; the mention of bed made her feel sleepy. + +'All right,' said the Psammead, in offended tones. 'I'm sure _I_ don't +want to tell you a long tale. A man caught me, and I bit him. And he put +me in a bag with a dead hare and a dead rabbit. And he took me to his +house and put me out of the bag into a basket with holes that I could +see through. And I bit him again. And then he brought me to this city, +which I am told is called the Modern Babylon--though it's not a bit like +the old Babylon--and he sold me to the man you bought me from, and then +I bit them both. Now, what's your news?' + +'There's not quite so much biting in our story,' said Cyril regretfully; +'in fact, there isn't any. Father's gone to Manchuria, and Mother and +The Lamb have gone to Madeira because Mother was ill, and don't I just +wish that they were both safe home again.' + +Merely from habit, the Sand-fairy began to blow itself out, but it +stopped short suddenly. + +'I forgot,' it said; 'I can't give you any more wishes.' + +'No--but look here,' said Cyril, 'couldn't we call in old Nurse and get +her to say SHE wishes they were safe home. I'm sure she does.' + +'No go,' said the Psammead. 'It's just the same as your wishing yourself +if you get some one else to wish for you. It won't act.' + +'But it did yesterday--with the man in the shop,' said Robert. + +'Ah yes,' said the creature, 'but you didn't ASK him to wish, and you +didn't know what would happen if he did. That can't be done again. It's +played out.' + +'Then you can't help us at all,' said Jane; 'oh--I did think you could +do something; I've been thinking about it ever since we saved your life +yesterday. I thought you'd be certain to be able to fetch back Father, +even if you couldn't manage Mother.' + +And Jane began to cry. + +'Now DON'T,' said the Psammead hastily; 'you know how it always upsets +me if you cry. I can't feel safe a moment. Look here; you must have some +new kind of charm.' + +'That's easier said than done.' + +'Not a bit of it,' said the creature; 'there's one of the strongest +charms in the world not a stone's throw from where you bought me +yesterday. The man that I bit so--the first one, I mean--went into +a shop to ask how much something cost--I think he said it was a +concertina--and while he was telling the man in the shop how much too +much he wanted for it, I saw the charm in a sort of tray, with a lot of +other things. If you can only buy THAT, you will be able to have your +heart's desire.' + +The children looked at each other and then at the Psammead. Then Cyril +coughed awkwardly and took sudden courage to say what everyone was +thinking. + +'I do hope you won't be waxy,' he said; 'but it's like this: when you +used to give us our wishes they almost always got us into some row +or other, and we used to think you wouldn't have been pleased if they +hadn't. Now, about this charm--we haven't got over and above too much +tin, and if we blue it all on this charm and it turns out to be not up +to much--well--you see what I'm driving at, don't you?' + +'I see that YOU don't see more than the length of your nose, and THAT'S +not far,' said the Psammead crossly. 'Look here, I HAD to give you the +wishes, and of course they turned out badly, in a sort of way, because +you hadn't the sense to wish for what was good for you. But this charm's +quite different. I haven't GOT to do this for you, it's just my own +generous kindness that makes me tell you about it. So it's bound to be +all right. See?' + +'Don't be cross,' said Anthea, 'Please, PLEASE don't. You see, it's +all we've got; we shan't have any more pocket-money till Daddy comes +home--unless he sends us some in a letter. But we DO trust you. And I +say all of you,' she went on, 'don't you think it's worth spending ALL +the money, if there's even the chanciest chance of getting Father and +Mother back safe NOW? Just think of it! Oh, do let's!' + +'_I_ don't care what you do,' said the Psammead; 'I'll go back to sand +again till you've made up your minds.' + +'No, don't!' said everybody; and Jane added, 'We are quite mind +made-up--don't you see we are? Let's get our hats. Will you come with +us?' + +'Of course,' said the Psammead; 'how else would you find the shop?' + +So everybody got its hat. The Psammead was put into a flat bass-bag that +had come from Farringdon Market with two pounds of filleted plaice in +it. Now it contained about three pounds and a quarter of solid Psammead, +and the children took it in turns to carry it. + +'It's not half the weight of The Lamb,' Robert said, and the girls +sighed. + +The Psammead poked a wary eye out of the top of the basket every now and +then, and told the children which turnings to take. + +'How on earth do you know?' asked Robert. 'I can't think how you do it.' + +And the Psammead said sharply, 'No--I don't suppose you can.' + +At last they came to THE shop. It had all sorts and kinds of things +in the window--concertinas, and silk handkerchiefs, china vases and +tea-cups, blue Japanese jars, pipes, swords, pistols, lace collars, +silver spoons tied up in half-dozens, and wedding-rings in a red +lacquered basin. There were officers' epaulets and doctors' lancets. +There were tea-caddies inlaid with red turtle-shell and brass +curly-wurlies, plates of different kinds of money, and stacks of +different kinds of plates. There was a beautiful picture of a little +girl washing a dog, which Jane liked very much. And in the middle of +the window there was a dirty silver tray full of mother-of-pearl card +counters, old seals, paste buckles, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of little +dingy odds and ends. + +The Psammead put its head quite out of the fish-basket to look in the +window, when Cyril said-- + +'There's a tray there with rubbish in it.' + +And then its long snail's eyes saw something that made them stretch out +so much that they were as long and thin as new slate-pencils. Its fur +bristled thickly, and its voice was quite hoarse with excitement as it +whispered-- + +'That's it! That's it! There, under that blue and yellow buckle, you can +see a bit sticking out. It's red. Do you see?' + +'Is it that thing something like a horse-shoe?' asked Cyril. 'And red, +like the common sealing-wax you do up parcels with?' 'Yes, that's it,' +said the Psammead. 'Now, you do just as you did before. Ask the price of +other things. That blue buckle would do. Then the man will get the tray +out of the window. I think you'd better be the one,' it said to Anthea. +'We'll wait out here.' + +So the others flattened their noses against the shop window, and +presently a large, dirty, short-fingered hand with a very big diamond +ring came stretching through the green half-curtains at the back of the +shop window and took away the tray. + +They could not see what was happening in the interview between Anthea +and the Diamond Ring, and it seemed to them that she had had time--if +she had had money--to buy everything in the shop before the moment came +when she stood before them, her face wreathed in grins, as Cyril said +later, and in her hand the charm. + +It was something like this: [Drawing omitted.] and it was made of a red, +smooth, softly shiny stone. + +'I've got it,' Anthea whispered, just opening her hand to give the +others a glimpse of it. 'Do let's get home. We can't stand here like +stuck-pigs looking at it in the street.' + +So home they went. The parlour in Fitzroy Street was a very flat +background to magic happenings. Down in the country among the flowers +and green fields anything had seemed--and indeed had been--possible. But +it was hard to believe that anything really wonderful could happen so +near the Tottenham Court Road. But the Psammead was there--and it in +itself was wonderful. And it could talk--and it had shown them where a +charm could be bought that would make the owner of it perfectly happy. +So the four children hurried home, taking very long steps, with their +chins stuck out, and their mouths shut very tight indeed. They went so +fast that the Psammead was quite shaken about in its fish-bag, but it +did not say anything--perhaps for fear of attracting public notice. + +They got home at last, very hot indeed, and set the Psammead on the +green tablecloth. + +'Now then!' said Cyril. + +But the Psammead had to have a plate of sand fetched for it, for it was +quite faint. When it had refreshed itself a little it said-- + +'Now then! Let me see the charm,' and Anthea laid it on the green +table-cover. The Psammead shot out his long eyes to look at it, then it +turned them reproachfully on Anthea and said-- + +'But there's only half of it here!' + +This was indeed a blow. + +'It was all there was,' said Anthea, with timid firmness. She knew it +was not her fault. 'There should be another piece,' said the Psammead, +'and a sort of pin to fasten the two together.' + +'Isn't half any good?'--'Won't it work without the other bit?'--'It cost +seven-and-six.'--'Oh, bother, bother, bother!'--'Don't be silly little +idiots!' said everyone and the Psammead altogether. + +Then there was a wretched silence. Cyril broke it-- + +'What shall we do?' + +'Go back to the shop and see if they haven't got the other half,' said +the Psammead. 'I'll go to sand till you come back. Cheer up! Even the +bit you've got is SOME good, but it'll be no end of a bother if you +can't find the other.' + +So Cyril went to the shop. And the Psammead to sand. And the other three +went to dinner, which was now ready. And old Nurse was very cross that +Cyril was not ready too. + +The three were watching at the windows when Cyril returned, and even +before he was near enough for them to see his face there was something +about the slouch of his shoulders and set of his knickerbockers and +the way he dragged his boots along that showed but too plainly that his +errand had been in vain. + +'Well?' they all said, hoping against hope on the front-door step. + +'No go,' Cyril answered; 'the man said the thing was perfect. He said +it was a Roman lady's locket, and people shouldn't buy curios if they +didn't know anything about arky--something or other, and that he never +went back on a bargain, because it wasn't business, and he expected his +customers to act the same. He was simply nasty--that's what he was, and +I want my dinner.' + +It was plain that Cyril was not pleased. + +The unlikeliness of anything really interesting happening in that +parlour lay like a weight of lead on everyone's spirits. Cyril had his +dinner, and just as he was swallowing the last mouthful of apple-pudding +there was a scratch at the door. Anthea opened it and in walked the +Psammead. + +'Well,' it said, when it had heard the news, 'things might be worse. +Only you won't be surprised if you have a few adventures before you get +the other half. You want to get it, of course.' + +'Rather,' was the general reply. 'And we don't mind adventures.' + +'No,' said the Psammead, 'I seem to remember that about you. Well, sit +down and listen with all your ears. Eight, are there? Right--I am glad +you know arithmetic. Now pay attention, because I don't intend to tell +you everything twice over.' + +As the children settled themselves on the floor--it was far more +comfortable than the chairs, as well as more polite to the Psammead, who +was stroking its whiskers on the hearth-rug--a sudden cold pain caught +at Anthea's heart. Father--Mother--the darling Lamb--all far away. Then +a warm, comfortable feeling flowed through her. The Psammead was here, +and at least half a charm, and there were to be adventures. (If you +don't know what a cold pain is, I am glad for your sakes, and I hope you +never may.) + +'Now,' said the Psammead cheerily, 'you are not particularly nice, nor +particularly clever, and you're not at all good-looking. Still, you've +saved my life--oh, when I think of that man and his pail of water!--so +I'll tell you all I know. At least, of course I can't do that, because I +know far too much. But I'll tell you all I know about this red thing.' + +'Do! Do! Do! Do!' said everyone. + +'Well, then,' said the Psammead. 'This thing is half of an Amulet that +can do all sorts of things; it can make the corn grow, and the waters +flow, and the trees bear fruit, and the little new beautiful babies +come. (Not that babies ARE beautiful, of course,' it broke off to say, +'but their mothers think they are--and as long as you think a thing's +true it IS true as far as you're concerned.)' + +Robert yawned. + +The Psammead went on. + +'The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people +unhappy--jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness, +selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet +was made. Don't you think it would be nice to have it?' + +'Very,' said the children, quite without enthusiasm. + +'And it can give you strength and courage.' + +'That's better,' said Cyril. + +'And virtue.' + +'I suppose it's nice to have that,' said Jane, but not with much +interest. + +'And it can give you your heart's desire.' + +'Now you're talking,' said Robert. + +'Of course I am,' retorted the Psammead tartly, 'so there's no need for +you to.' + +'Heart's desire is good enough for me,' said Cyril. + +'Yes, but,' Anthea ventured, 'all that's what the WHOLE charm can do. +There's something that the half we've got can win off its own bat--isn't +there?' She appealed to the Psammead. It nodded. + +'Yes,' it said; 'the half has the power to take you anywhere you like to +look for the other half.' + +This seemed a brilliant prospect till Robert asked-- + +'Does it know where to look?' + +The Psammead shook its head and answered, 'I don't think it's likely.' + +'Do you?' + +'No.' + +'Then,' said Robert, 'we might as well look for a needle in a bottle of +hay. Yes--it IS bottle, and not bundle, Father said so.' + +'Not at all,' said the Psammead briskly-, 'you think you know +everything, but you are quite mistaken. The first thing is to get the +thing to talk.' + +'Can it?' Jane questioned. Jane's question did not mean that she thought +it couldn't, for in spite of the parlour furniture the feeling of magic +was growing deeper and thicker, and seemed to fill the room like a dream +of a scented fog. + +'Of course it can. I suppose you can read.' + +'Oh yes!' Everyone was rather hurt at the question. + +'Well, then--all you've got to do is to read the name that's written on +the part of the charm that you've got. And as soon as you say the name +out loud the thing will have power to do--well, several things.' + +There was a silence. The red charm was passed from hand to hand. + +'There's no name on it,' said Cyril at last. + +'Nonsense,' said the Psammead; 'what's that?' + +'Oh, THAT!' said Cyril, 'it's not reading. It looks like pictures of +chickens and snakes and things.' + +This was what was on the charm: [Hieroglyphics omitted.] + +'I've no patience with you,' said the Psammead; 'if you can't read you +must find some one who can. A priest now?' + +'We don't know any priests,' said Anthea; 'we know a clergyman--he's +called a priest in the prayer-book, you know--but he only knows Greek +and Latin and Hebrew, and this isn't any of those--I know.' + +The Psammead stamped a furry foot angrily. + +'I wish I'd never seen you,' it said; 'you aren't any more good than so +many stone images. Not so much, if I'm to tell the truth. Is there no +wise man in your Babylon who can pronounce the names of the Great Ones?' + +'There's a poor learned gentleman upstairs,' said Anthea, 'we might try +him. He has a lot of stone images in his room, and iron-looking ones +too--we peeped in once when he was out. Old Nurse says he doesn't eat +enough to keep a canary alive. He spends it all on stones and things.' + +'Try him,' said the Psammead, 'only be careful. If he knows a greater +name than this and uses it against you, your charm will be of no use. +Bind him first with the chains of honour and upright dealing. And then +ask his aid--oh, yes, you'd better all go; you can put me to sand as you +go upstairs. I must have a few minutes' peace and quietness.' + +So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed their +hair--this was Anthea's idea--and went up to knock at the door of the +'poor learned gentleman', and to 'bind him with the chains of honour and +upright dealing'. + + + +CHAPTER 3. THE PAST + +The learned gentleman had let his dinner get quite cold. It was mutton +chop, and as it lay on the plate it looked like a brown island in the +middle of a frozen pond, because the grease of the gravy had become +cold, and consequently white. It looked very nasty, and it was the first +thing the children saw when, after knocking three times and receiving +no reply, one of them ventured to turn the handle and softly to open the +door. The chop was on the end of a long table that ran down one side of +the room. The table had images on it and queer-shaped stones, and books. +And there were glass cases fixed against the wall behind, with little +strange things in them. The cases were rather like the ones you see in +jewellers' shops. + +The 'poor learned gentleman' was sitting at a table in the window, +looking at something very small which he held in a pair of fine pincers. +He had a round spy-glass sort of thing in one eye--which reminded +the children of watchmakers, and also of the long snail's eyes of the +Psammead. The gentleman was very long and thin, and his long, thin boots +stuck out under the other side of his table. He did not hear the door +open, and the children stood hesitating. At last Robert gave the door a +push, and they all started back, for in the middle of the wall that the +door had hidden was a mummy-case--very, very, very big--painted in red +and yellow and green and black, and the face of it seemed to look at +them quite angrily. + +You know what a mummy-case is like, of course? If you don't you had +better go to the British Museum at once and find out. Anyway, it is not +at all the sort of thing that you expect to meet in a top-floor front +in Bloomsbury, looking as though it would like to know what business YOU +had there. + +So everyone said, 'Oh!' rather loud, and their boots clattered as they +stumbled back. + +The learned gentleman took the glass out of his eye and said--'I beg +your pardon,' in a very soft, quiet pleasant voice--the voice of a +gentleman who has been to Oxford. + +'It's us that beg yours,' said Cyril politely. 'We are sorry to disturb +you.' + +'Come in,' said the gentleman, rising--with the most distinguished +courtesy, Anthea told herself. 'I am delighted to see you. Won't you sit +down? No, not there; allow me to move that papyrus.' + +He cleared a chair, and stood smiling and looking kindly through his +large, round spectacles. + +'He treats us like grown-ups,' whispered Robert, 'and he doesn't seem to +know how many of us there are.' + +'Hush,' said Anthea, 'it isn't manners to whisper. You say, Cyril--go +ahead.' + +'We're very sorry to disturb you,' said Cyril politely, 'but we did +knock three times, and you didn't say "Come in", or "Run away now", or +that you couldn't be bothered just now, or to come when you weren't so +busy, or any of the things people do say when you knock at doors, so we +opened it. We knew you were in because we heard you sneeze while we were +waiting.' + +'Not at all,' said the gentleman; 'do sit down.' + +'He has found out there are four of us,' said Robert, as the gentleman +cleared three more chairs. He put the things off them carefully on the +floor. The first chair had things like bricks that tiny, tiny birds' +feet have walked over when the bricks were soft, only the marks were in +regular lines. The second chair had round things on it like very large, +fat, long, pale beads. And the last chair had a pile of dusty papers on +it. The children sat down. + +'We know you are very, very learned,' said Cyril, 'and we have got a +charm, and we want you to read the name on it, because it isn't in Latin +or Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the languages WE know--' + +'A thorough knowledge of even those languages is a very fair foundation +on which to build an education,' said the gentleman politely. + +'Oh!' said Cyril blushing, 'but we only know them to look at, except +Latin--and I'm only in Caesar with that.' The gentleman took off his +spectacles and laughed. His laugh sounded rusty, Cyril thought, as +though it wasn't often used. + +'Of course!' he said. 'I'm sure I beg your pardon. I think I must have +been in a dream. You are the children who live downstairs, are you not? +Yes. I have seen you as I have passed in and out. And you have found +something that you think to be an antiquity, and you've brought it to +show me? That was very kind. I should like to inspect it.' + +'I'm afraid we didn't think about your liking to inspect it,' said the +truthful Anthea. 'It was just for US because we wanted to know the name +on it--' + +'Oh, yes--and, I say,' Robert interjected, 'you won't think it rude +of us if we ask you first, before we show it, to be bound in the +what-do-you-call-it of--' + +'In the bonds of honour and upright dealing,' said Anthea. + +'I'm afraid I don't quite follow you,' said the gentleman, with gentle +nervousness. + +'Well, it's this way,' said Cyril. 'We've got part of a charm. And the +Sammy--I mean, something told us it would work, though it's only half a +one; but it won't work unless we can say the name that's on it. But, of +course, if you've got another name that can lick ours, our charm will +be no go; so we want you to give us your word of honour as a +gentleman--though I'm sure, now I've seen you, that it's not necessary; +but still I've promised to ask you, so we must. Will you please give us +your honourable word not to say any name stronger than the name on our +charm?' + +The gentleman had put on his spectacles again and was looking at Cyril +through them. He now said: 'Bless me!' more than once, adding, 'Who told +you all this?' + +'I can't tell you,' said Cyril. 'I'm very sorry, but I can't.' + +Some faint memory of a far-off childhood must have come to the learned +gentleman just then, for he smiled. 'I see,' he said. 'It is some sort +of game that you are engaged in? Of course! Yes! Well, I will certainly +promise. Yet I wonder how you heard of the names of power?' + +'We can't tell you that either,' said Cyril; and Anthea said, 'Here is +our charm,' and held it out. + +With politeness, but without interest, the gentleman took it. But after +the first glance all his body suddenly stiffened, as a pointer's does +when he sees a partridge. + +'Excuse me,' he said in quite a changed voice, and carried the charm to +the window. He looked at it; he turned it over. He fixed his spy-glass +in his eye and looked again. No one said anything. Only Robert made a +shuffling noise with his feet till Anthea nudged him to shut up. At last +the learned gentleman drew a long breath. + +'Where did you find this?' he asked. + +'We didn't find it. We bought it at a shop. Jacob Absalom the name +is--not far from Charing Cross,' said Cyril. + +'We gave seven-and-sixpence for it,' added Jane. + +'It is not for sale, I suppose? You do not wish to part with it? + +I ought to tell you that it is extremely valuable--extraordinarily +valuable, I may say.' + +'Yes,' said Cyril, 'we know that, so of course we want to keep it.' + +'Keep it carefully, then,' said the gentleman impressively; 'and if ever +you should wish to part with it, may I ask you to give me the refusal of +it?' + +'The refusal?' + +'I mean, do not sell it to anyone else until you have given me the +opportunity of buying it.' + +'All right,' said Cyril, 'we won't. But we don't want to sell it. We +want to make it do things.' + +'I suppose you can play at that as well as at anything else,' said the +gentleman; 'but I'm afraid the days of magic are over.' + +'They aren't REALLY,' said Anthea earnestly. 'You'd see they aren't if I +could tell you about our last summer holidays. Only I mustn't. Thank you +very much. And can you read the name?' + +'Yes, I can read it.' + +'Will you tell it us?' 'The name,' said the gentleman, 'is Ur Hekau +Setcheh.' + +'Ur Hekau Setcheh,' repeated Cyril. 'Thanks awfully. I do hope we +haven't taken up too much of your time.' + +'Not at all,' said the gentleman. 'And do let me entreat you to be very, +very careful of that most valuable specimen.' + +They said 'Thank you' in all the different polite ways they could think +of, and filed out of the door and down the stairs. Anthea was last. +Half-way down to the first landing she turned and ran up again. + +The door was still open, and the learned gentleman and the mummy-case +were standing opposite to each other, and both looked as though they had +stood like that for years. + +The gentleman started when Anthea put her hand on his arm. + +'I hope you won't be cross and say it's not my business,' she said, +'but do look at your chop! Don't you think you ought to eat it? Father +forgets his dinner sometimes when he's writing, and Mother always says I +ought to remind him if she's not at home to do it herself, because it's +so bad to miss your regular meals. + +So I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind my reminding you, because you +don't seem to have anyone else to do it.' + +She glanced at the mummy-case; IT certainly did not look as though it +would ever think of reminding people of their meals. + +The learned gentleman looked at her for a moment before he said-- + +'Thank you, my dear. It was a kindly thought. No, I haven't anyone to +remind me about things like that.' + +He sighed, and looked at the chop. + +'It looks very nasty,' said Anthea. + +'Yes,' he said, 'it does. I'll eat it immediately, before I forget.' + +As he ate it he sighed more than once. Perhaps because the chop was +nasty, perhaps because he longed for the charm which the children did +not want to sell, perhaps because it was so long since anyone cared +whether he ate his chops or forgot them. + +Anthea caught the others at the stair-foot. They woke the Psammead, and +it taught them exactly how to use the word of power, and to make the +charm speak. I am not going to tell you how this is done, because you +might try to do it. And for you any such trying would be almost sure +to end in disappointment. Because in the first place it is a thousand +million to one against your ever getting hold of the right sort of +charm, and if you did, there would be hardly any chance at all of your +finding a learned gentleman clever enough and kind enough to read the +word for you. + +The children and the Psammead crouched in a circle on the floor--in the +girls' bedroom, because in the parlour they might have been interrupted +by old Nurse's coming in to lay the cloth for tea--and the charm was put +in the middle of the circle. + +The sun shone splendidly outside, and the room was very light. Through +the open window came the hum and rattle of London, and in the street +below they could hear the voice of the milkman. + +When all was ready, the Psammead signed to Anthea to say the word. And +she said it. Instantly the whole light of all the world seemed to go +out. The room was dark. The world outside was dark--darker than the +darkest night that ever was. And all the sounds went out too, so that +there was a silence deeper than any silence you have ever even dreamed +of imagining. It was like being suddenly deaf and blind, only darker and +quieter even than that. + +But before the children had got over the sudden shock of it enough to be +frightened, a faint, beautiful light began to show in the middle of the +circle, and at the same moment a faint, beautiful voice began to speak. +The light was too small for one to see anything by, and the voice was +too small for you to hear what it said. You could just see the light and +just hear the voice. + +But the light grew stronger. It was greeny, like glow-worms' lamps, +and it grew and grew till it was as though thousands and thousands of +glow-worms were signalling to their winged sweethearts from the middle +of the circle. And the voice grew, not so much in loudness as in +sweetness (though it grew louder, too), till it was so sweet that +you wanted to cry with pleasure just at the sound of it. It was like +nightingales, and the sea, and the fiddle, and the voice of your mother +when you have been a long time away, and she meets you at the door when +you get home. + +And the voice said-- + +'Speak. What is it that you would hear?' + +I cannot tell you what language the voice used. I only know that +everyone present understood it perfectly. If you come to think of it, +there must be some language that everyone could understand, if we only +knew what it was. Nor can I tell you how the charm spoke, nor whether +it was the charm that spoke, or some presence in the charm. The children +could not have told you either. Indeed, they could not look at the charm +while it was speaking, because the light was too bright. They looked +instead at the green radiance on the faded Kidderminster carpet at the +edge of the circle. They all felt very quiet, and not inclined to ask +questions or fidget with their feet. For this was not like the things +that had happened in the country when the Psammead had given them their +wishes. That had been funny somehow, and this was not. It was something +like Arabian Nights magic, and something like being in church. No one +cared to speak. + +It was Cyril who said at last-- + +'Please we want to know where the other half of the charm is.' + +'The part of the Amulet which is lost,' said the beautiful voice, 'was +broken and ground into the dust of the shrine that held it. It and the +pin that joined the two halves are themselves dust, and the dust is +scattered over many lands and sunk in many seas.' + +'Oh, I say!' murmured Robert, and a blank silence fell. 'Then it's all +up?' said Cyril at last; 'it's no use our looking for a thing that's +smashed into dust, and the dust scattered all over the place.' + +'If you would find it,' said the voice, 'You must seek it where it still +is, perfect as ever.' + +'I don't understand,' said Cyril. + +'In the Past you may find it,' said the voice. + +'I wish we MAY find it,' said Cyril. + +The Psammead whispered crossly, 'Don't you understand? The thing existed +in the Past. If you were in the Past, too, you could find it. It's very +difficult to make you understand things. Time and space are only forms +of thought.' + +'I see,' said Cyril. + +'No, you don't,' said the Psammead, 'and it doesn't matter if you don't, +either. What I mean is that if you were only made the right way, you +could see everything happening in the same place at the same time. Now +do you see?' + +'I'm afraid _I_ don't,' said Anthea; 'I'm sorry I'm so stupid.' + +'Well, at any rate, you see this. That lost half of the Amulet is in the +Past. Therefore it's in the Past we must look for it. I mustn't speak to +the charm myself. Ask it things! Find out!' + +'Where can we find the other part of you?' asked Cyril obediently. + +'In the Past,' said the voice. + +'What part of the Past?' + +'I may not tell you. If you will choose a time, I will take you to the +place that then held it. You yourselves must find it.' + +'When did you see it last?' asked Anthea--'I mean, when was it taken +away from you?' + +The beautiful voice answered-- + +'That was thousands of years ago. The Amulet was perfect then, and lay +in a shrine, the last of many shrines, and I worked wonders. Then came +strange men with strange weapons and destroyed my shrine, and the Amulet +they bore away with many captives. But of these, one, my priest, knew +the word of power, and spoke it for me, so that the Amulet became +invisible, and thus returned to my shrine, but the shrine was broken +down, and ere any magic could rebuild it one spoke a word before which +my power bowed down and was still. And the Amulet lay there, still +perfect, but enslaved. Then one coming with stones to rebuild the +shrine, dropped a hewn stone on the Amulet as it lay, and one half was +sundered from the other. I had no power to seek for that which was lost. +And there being none to speak the word of power, I could not rejoin it. +So the Amulet lay in the dust of the desert many thousand years, and at +last came a small man, a conqueror with an army, and after him a crowd +of men who sought to seem wise, and one of these found half the Amulet +and brought it to this land. But none could read the name. So I lay +still. And this man dying and his son after him, the Amulet was sold by +those who came after to a merchant, and from him you bought it, and it +is here, and now, the name of power having been spoken, I also am here.' + +This is what the voice said. I think it must have meant Napoleon by the +small man, the conqueror. Because I know I have been told that he took +an army to Egypt, and that afterwards a lot of wise people went grubbing +in the sand, and fished up all sorts of wonderful things, older than +you would think possible. And of these I believe this charm to have been +one, and the most wonderful one of all. + +Everyone listened: and everyone tried to think. It is not easy to do +this clearly when you have been listening to the kind of talk I have +told you about. + +At last Robert said-- + +'Can you take us into the Past--to the shrine where you and the other +thing were together. If you could take us there, we might find the other +part still there after all these thousands of years.' + +'Still there? silly!' said Cyril. 'Don't you see, if we go back into the +Past it won't be thousands of years ago. It will be NOW for us--won't +it?' He appealed to the Psammead, who said-- + +'You're not so far off the idea as you usually are!' + +'Well,' said Anthea, 'will you take us back to when there was a shrine +and you were safe in it--all of you?' + +'Yes,' said the voice. 'You must hold me up, and speak the word of +power, and one by one, beginning with the first-born, you shall pass +through me into the Past. But let the last that passes be the one that +holds me, and let him not lose his hold, lest you lose me, and so remain +in the Past for ever.' + +'That's a nasty idea,' said Robert. + +'When you desire to return,' the beautiful voice went on, 'hold me up +towards the East, and speak the word. Then, passing through me, you +shall return to this time and it shall be the present to you.' + +'But how--' A bell rang loudly. + +'Oh crikey!' exclaimed Robert, 'that's tea! Will you please make it +proper daylight again so that we can go down. And thank you so much for +all your kindness.' + +'We've enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you!' added Anthea +politely. + +The beautiful light faded slowly. The great darkness and silence came +and these suddenly changed to the dazzlement of day and the great soft, +rustling sound of London, that is like some vast beast turning over in +its sleep. + +The children rubbed their eyes, the Psammead ran quickly to its sandy +bath, and the others went down to tea. And until the cups were actually +filled tea seemed less real than the beautiful voice and the greeny +light. + +After tea Anthea persuaded the others to allow her to hang the charm +round her neck with a piece of string. + +'It would be so awful if it got lost,' she said: 'it might get lost +anywhere, you know, and it would be rather beastly for us to have to +stay in the Past for ever and ever, wouldn't it?' + + + +CHAPTER 4. EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO + +Next morning Anthea got old Nurse to allow her to take up the 'poor +learned gentleman's' breakfast. He did not recognize her at first, but +when he did he was vaguely pleased to see her. + +'You see I'm wearing the charm round my neck,' she said; 'I'm taking +care of it--like you told us to.' + +'That's right,' said he; 'did you have a good game last night?' + +'You will eat your breakfast before it's cold, won't you?' said Anthea. +'Yes, we had a splendid time. The charm made it all dark, and then +greeny light, and then it spoke. Oh! I wish you could have heard it--it +was such a darling voice--and it told us the other half of it was lost +in the Past, so of course we shall have to look for it there!' + +The learned gentleman rubbed his hair with both hands and looked +anxiously at Anthea. + +'I suppose it's natural--youthful imagination and so forth,' he said. +'Yet someone must have... Who told you that some part of the charm was +missing?' + +'I can't tell you,' she said. 'I know it seems most awfully rude, +especially after being so kind about telling us the name of power, and +all that, but really, I'm not allowed to tell anybody anything about +the--the--the person who told me. You won't forget your breakfast, will +you?' + +The learned gentleman smiled feebly and then frowned--not a cross-frown, +but a puzzle-frown. + +'Thank you,' he said, 'I shall always be pleased if you'll look in--any +time you're passing you know--at least...' + +'I will,' she said; 'goodbye. I'll always tell you anything I MAY tell.' + +He had not had many adventures with children in them, and he wondered +whether all children were like these. He spent quite five minutes in +wondering before he settled down to the fifty-second chapter of his +great book on 'The Secret Rites of the Priests of Amen Ra'. + + +It is no use to pretend that the children did not feel a good deal of +agitation at the thought of going through the charm into the Past. That +idea, that perhaps they might stay in the Past and never get back again, +was anything but pleasing. Yet no one would have dared to suggest that +the charm should not be used; and though each was in its heart very +frightened indeed, they would all have joined in jeering at the +cowardice of any one of them who should have uttered the timid but +natural suggestion, 'Don't let's!' + +It seemed necessary to make arrangements for being out all day, for +there was no reason to suppose that the sound of the dinner-bell would +be able to reach back into the Past, and it seemed unwise to excite old +Nurse's curiosity when nothing they could say--not even the truth--could +in any way satisfy it. They were all very proud to think how well they +had understood what the charm and the Psammead had said about Time and +Space and things like that, and they were perfectly certain that it +would be quite impossible to make old Nurse understand a single word +of it. So they merely asked her to let them take their dinner out into +Regent's Park--and this, with the implied cold mutton and tomatoes, was +readily granted. + +'You can get yourselves some buns or sponge-cakes, or whatever you +fancy-like,' said old Nurse, giving Cyril a shilling. 'Don't go getting +jam-tarts, now--so messy at the best of times, and without forks and +plates ruination to your clothes, besides your not being able to wash +your hands and faces afterwards.' + +So Cyril took the shilling, and they all started off. They went round +by the Tottenham Court Road to buy a piece of waterproof sheeting to put +over the Psammead in case it should be raining in the Past when they got +there. For it is almost certain death to a Psammead to get wet. + +The sun was shining very brightly, and even London looked pretty. Women +were selling roses from big baskets-full, and Anthea bought four roses, +one each, for herself and the others. They were red roses and smelt +of summer--the kind of roses you always want so desperately at about +Christmas-time when you can only get mistletoe, which is pale right +through to its very scent, and holly which pricks your nose if you try +to smell it. So now everyone had a rose in its buttonhole, and soon +everyone was sitting on the grass in Regent's Park under trees whose +leaves would have been clean, clear green in the country, but here were +dusty and yellowish, and brown at the edges. + +'We've got to go on with it,' said Anthea, 'and as the eldest has to go +first, you'll have to be last, Jane. You quite understand about holding +on to the charm as you go through, don't you, Pussy?' + +'I wish I hadn't got to be last,' said Jane. + +'You shall carry the Psammead if you like,' said Anthea. 'That is,' she +added, remembering the beast's queer temper, 'if it'll let you.' + +The Psammead, however, was unexpectedly amiable. + +'_I_ don't mind,' it said, 'who carries me, so long as it doesn't drop +me. I can't bear being dropped.' + +Jane with trembling hands took the Psammead and its fish-basket under +one arm. The charm's long string was hung round her neck. Then they all +stood up. Jane held out the charm at arm's length, and Cyril solemnly +pronounced the word of power. + +As he spoke it the charm grew tall and broad, and he saw that Jane was +just holding on to the edge of a great red arch of very curious shape. +The opening of the arch was small, but Cyril saw that he could go +through it. All round and beyond the arch were the faded trees and +trampled grass of Regent's Park, where the little ragged children were +playing Ring-o'-Roses. But through the opening of it shone a blaze of +blue and yellow and red. Cyril drew a long breath and stiffened his +legs so that the others should not see that his knees were trembling and +almost knocking together. 'Here goes!' he said, and, stepping up through +the arch, disappeared. Then followed Anthea. Robert, coming next, +held fast, at Anthea's suggestion, to the sleeve of Jane, who was thus +dragged safely through the arch. And as soon as they were on the other +side of the arch there was no more arch at all and no more Regent's Park +either, only the charm in Jane's hand, and it was its proper size again. +They were now in a light so bright that they winked and blinked and +rubbed their eyes. During this dazzling interval Anthea felt for the +charm and pushed it inside Jane's frock, so that it might be quite safe. +When their eyes got used to the new wonderful light the children looked +around them. The sky was very, very blue, and it sparkled and glittered +and dazzled like the sea at home when the sun shines on it. + +They were standing on a little clearing in a thick, low forest; there +were trees and shrubs and a close, thorny, tangly undergrowth. In +front of them stretched a bank of strange black mud, then came the +browny-yellowy shining ribbon of a river. Then more dry, caked mud and +more greeny-browny jungle. The only things that told that human people +had been there were the clearing, a path that led to it, and an odd +arrangement of cut reeds in the river. + +They looked at each other. + +'Well!' said Robert, 'this IS a change of air!' + +It was. The air was hotter than they could have imagined, even in London +in August. + +'I wish I knew where we were,' said Cyril. + +'Here's a river, now--I wonder whether it's the Amazon or the Tiber, or +what.' + +'It's the Nile,' said the Psammead, looking out of the fish-bag. + +'Then this is Egypt,' said Robert, who had once taken a geography prize. + +'I don't see any crocodiles,' Cyril objected. His prize had been for +natural history. + +The Psammead reached out a hairy arm from its basket and pointed to a +heap of mud at the edge of the water. + +'What do you call that?' it said; and as it spoke the heap of mud slid +into the river just as a slab of damp mixed mortar will slip from a +bricklayer's trowel. + +'Oh!' said everybody. + +There was a crashing among the reeds on the other side of the water. + +'And there's a river-horse!' said the Psammead, as a great beast like an +enormous slaty-blue slug showed itself against the black bank on the far +side of the stream. + +'It's a hippopotamus,' said Cyril; 'it seems much more real somehow than +the one at the Zoo, doesn't it?' + +'I'm glad it's being real on the other side of the river,' said Jane. +And now there was a crackling of reeds and twigs behind them. This was +horrible. Of course it might be another hippopotamus, or a crocodile, or +a lion--or, in fact, almost anything. + +'Keep your hand on the charm, Jane,' said Robert hastily. 'We ought to +have a means of escape handy. I'm dead certain this is the sort of place +where simply anything might happen to us.' + +'I believe a hippopotamus is going to happen to us,' said Jane--'a very, +very big one.' + +They had all turned to face the danger. + +'Don't be silly little duffers,' said the Psammead in its friendly, +informal way; 'it's not a river-horse. It's a human.' + +It was. It was a girl--of about Anthea's age. Her hair was short and +fair, and though her skin was tanned by the sun, you could see that it +would have been fair too if it had had a chance. She had every chance of +being tanned, for she had no clothes to speak of, and the four English +children, carefully dressed in frocks, hats, shoes, stockings, coats, +collars, and all the rest of it, envied her more than any words of +theirs or of mine could possibly say. There was no doubt that here was +the right costume for that climate. + +She carried a pot on her head, of red and black earthenware. She did not +see the children, who shrank back against the edge of the jungle, and +she went forward to the brink of the river to fill her pitcher. As she +went she made a strange sort of droning, humming, melancholy noise +all on two notes. Anthea could not help thinking that perhaps the girl +thought this noise was singing. + +The girl filled the pitcher and set it down by the river bank. Then +she waded into the water and stooped over the circle of cut reeds. She +pulled half a dozen fine fish out of the water within the reeds, killing +each as she took it out, and threading it on a long osier that she +carried. Then she knotted the osier, hung it on her arm, picked up the +pitcher, and turned to come back. And as she turned she saw the four +children. The white dresses of Jane and Anthea stood out like snow +against the dark forest background. She screamed and the pitcher fell, +and the water was spilled out over the hard mud surface and over the +fish, which had fallen too. Then the water slowly trickled away into the +deep cracks. + +'Don't be frightened,' Anthea cried, 'we won't hurt you.' + +'Who are you?' said the girl. + +Now, once for all, I am not going to be bothered to tell you how it was +that the girl could understand Anthea and Anthea could understand the +girl. YOU, at any rate, would not understand ME, if I tried to explain +it, any more than you can understand about time and space being only +forms of thought. You may think what you like. Perhaps the children +had found out the universal language which everyone can understand, and +which wise men so far have not found. You will have noticed long ago +that they were singularly lucky children, and they may have had this +piece of luck as well as others. Or it may have been that... but +why pursue the question further? The fact remains that in all their +adventures the muddle-headed inventions which we call foreign languages +never bothered them in the least. They could always understand and +be understood. If you can explain this, please do. I daresay I could +understand your explanation, though you could never understand mine. + +So when the girl said, 'Who are you?' everyone understood at once, and +Anthea replied-- + +'We are children--just like you. Don't be frightened. Won't you show us +where you live?' + +Jane put her face right into the Psammead's basket, and burrowed her +mouth into its fur to whisper-- + +'Is it safe? Won't they eat us? Are they cannibals?' + +The Psammead shrugged its fur. + +'Don't make your voice buzz like that, it tickles my ears,' it said +rather crossly. 'You can always get back to Regent's Park in time if you +keep fast hold of the charm,' it said. + +The strange girl was trembling with fright. + +Anthea had a bangle on her arm. It was a sevenpenny-halfpenny trumpery +thing that pretended to be silver; it had a glass heart of turquoise +blue hanging from it, and it was the gift of the maid-of-all-work at the +Fitzroy Street house. 'Here,' said Anthea, 'this is for you. That is +to show we will not hurt you. And if you take it I shall know that you +won't hurt us.' + +The girl held out her hand. Anthea slid the bangle over it, and the +girl's face lighted up with the joy of possession. + +'Come,' she said, looking lovingly at the bangle; 'it is peace between +your house and mine.' + +She picked up her fish and pitcher and led the way up the narrow path by +which she had come and the others followed. + +'This is something like!' said Cyril, trying to be brave. + +'Yes!' said Robert, also assuming a boldness he was far from feeling, +'this really and truly IS an adventure! Its being in the Past makes it +quite different from the Phoenix and Carpet happenings.' + +The belt of thick-growing acacia trees and shrubs--mostly prickly and +unpleasant-looking--seemed about half a mile across. The path was narrow +and the wood dark. At last, ahead, daylight shone through the boughs and +leaves. + +The whole party suddenly came out of the wood's shadow into the glare of +the sunlight that shone on a great stretch of yellow sand, dotted with +heaps of grey rocks where spiky cactus plants showed gaudy crimson and +pink flowers among their shabby, sand-peppered leaves. Away to the right +was something that looked like a grey-brown hedge, and from beyond it +blue smoke went up to the bluer sky. And over all the sun shone till you +could hardly bear your clothes. + +'That is where I live,' said the girl pointing. + +'I won't go,' whispered Jane into the basket, 'unless you say it's all +right.' + +The Psammead ought to have been touched by this proof of confidence. +Perhaps, however, it looked upon it as a proof of doubt, for it merely +snarled-- + +'If you don't go now I'll never help you again.' + +'OH,' whispered Anthea, 'dear Jane, don't! Think of Father and Mother +and all of us getting our heart's desire. And we can go back any minute. +Come on!' + +'Besides,' said Cyril, in a low voice, 'the Psammead must know there's +no danger or it wouldn't go. It's not so over and above brave itself. +Come on!' + +This Jane at last consented to do. + +As they got nearer to the browny fence they saw that it was a great +hedge about eight feet high, made of piled-up thorn bushes. + +'What's that for?' asked Cyril. + +'To keep out foes and wild beasts,' said the girl. + +'I should think it ought to, too,' said he. 'Why, some of the thorns are +as long as my foot.' + +There was an opening in the hedge, and they followed the girl through +it. A little way further on was another hedge, not so high, also of dry +thorn bushes, very prickly and spiteful-looking, and within this was a +sort of village of huts. + +There were no gardens and no roads. Just huts built of wood and twigs +and clay, and roofed with great palm-leaves, dumped down anywhere. The +doors of these houses were very low, like the doors of dog-kennels. +The ground between them was not paths or streets, but just yellow sand +trampled very hard and smooth. + +In the middle of the village there was a hedge that enclosed what seemed +to be a piece of ground about as big as their own garden in Camden Town. + +No sooner were the children well within the inner thorn hedge than +dozens of men and women and children came crowding round from behind and +inside the huts. + +The girl stood protectingly in front of the four children, and said-- + +'They are wonder-children from beyond the desert. They bring marvellous +gifts, and I have said that it is peace between us and them.' + +She held out her arm with the Lowther Arcade bangle on it. + +The children from London, where nothing now surprises anyone, had never +before seen so many people look so astonished. + +They crowded round the children, touching their clothes, their shoes, +the buttons on the boys' jackets, and the coral of the girls' necklaces. + +'Do say something,' whispered Anthea. + +'We come,' said Cyril, with some dim remembrance of a dreadful day when +he had had to wait in an outer office while his father interviewed +a solicitor, and there had been nothing to read but the Daily +Telegraph--'we come from the world where the sun never sets. And peace +with honour is what we want. We are the great Anglo-Saxon or conquering +race. Not that we want to conquer YOU,' he added hastily. 'We only want +to look at your houses and your--well, at all you've got here, and then +we shall return to our own place, and tell of all that we have seen so +that your name may be famed.' + +Cyril's speech didn't keep the crowd from pressing round and looking as +eagerly as ever at the clothing of the children. Anthea had an idea +that these people had never seen woven stuff before, and she saw how +wonderful and strange it must seem to people who had never had any +clothes but the skins of beasts. The sewing, too, of modern clothes +seemed to astonish them very much. They must have been able to sew +themselves, by the way, for men who seemed to be the chiefs wore +knickerbockers of goat-skin or deer-skin, fastened round the waist +with twisted strips of hide. And the women wore long skimpy skirts of +animals' skins. The people were not very tall, their hair was fair, and +men and women both had it short. Their eyes were blue, and that seemed +odd in Egypt. Most of them were tattooed like sailors, only more +roughly. + +'What is this? What is this?' they kept asking touching the children's +clothes curiously. + +Anthea hastily took off Jane's frilly lace collar and handed it to the +woman who seemed most friendly. + +'Take this,' she said, 'and look at it. And leave us alone. We want to +talk among ourselves.' + +She spoke in the tone of authority which she had always found successful +when she had not time to coax her baby brother to do as he was told. The +tone was just as successful now. The children were left together and the +crowd retreated. It paused a dozen yards away to look at the lace collar +and to go on talking as hard as it could. + +The children will never know what those people said, though they knew +well enough that they, the four strangers, were the subject of the talk. +They tried to comfort themselves by remembering the girl's promise +of friendliness, but of course the thought of the charm was more +comfortable than anything else. They sat down on the sand in the shadow +of the hedged-round place in the middle of the village, and now for the +first time they were able to look about them and to see something more +than a crowd of eager, curious faces. + +They here noticed that the women wore necklaces made of beads of +different coloured stone, and from these hung pendants of odd, strange +shapes, and some of them had bracelets of ivory and flint. + +'I say,' said Robert, 'what a lot we could teach them if we stayed +here!' + +'I expect they could teach us something too,' said Cyril. 'Did you +notice that flint bracelet the woman had that Anthea gave the collar to? +That must have taken some making. Look here, they'll get suspicious if +we talk among ourselves, and I do want to know about how they do things. +Let's get the girl to show us round, and we can be thinking about how to +get the Amulet at the same time. Only mind, we must keep together.' + +Anthea beckoned to the girl, who was standing a little way off looking +wistfully at them, and she came gladly. + +'Tell us how you make the bracelets, the stone ones,' said Cyril. + +'With other stones,' said the girl; 'the men make them; we have men of +special skill in such work.' + +'Haven't you any iron tools?' + +'Iron,' said the girl, 'I don't know what you mean.' It was the first +word she had not understood. + +'Are all your tools of flint?' asked Cyril. 'Of course,' said the girl, +opening her eyes wide. + +I wish I had time to tell you of that talk. The English children wanted +to hear all about this new place, but they also wanted to tell of their +own country. It was like when you come back from your holidays and you +want to hear and to tell everything at the same time. As the talk went +on there were more and more words that the girl could not understand, +and the children soon gave up the attempt to explain to her what their +own country was like, when they began to see how very few of the things +they had always thought they could not do without were really not at all +necessary to life. + +The girl showed them how the huts were made--indeed, as one was being +made that very day she took them to look at it. The way of building was +very different from ours. The men stuck long pieces of wood into a piece +of ground the size of the hut they wanted to make. These were about +eight inches apart; then they put in another row about eight inches away +from the first, and then a third row still further out. Then all the +space between was filled up with small branches and twigs, and then +daubed over with black mud worked with the feet till it was soft and +sticky like putty. + +The girl told them how the men went hunting with flint spears and +arrows, and how they made boats with reeds and clay. Then she explained +the reed thing in the river that she had taken the fish out of. It was a +fish-trap--just a ring of reeds set up in the water with only one little +opening in it, and in this opening, just below the water, were stuck +reeds slanting the way of the river's flow, so that the fish, when they +had swum sillily in, sillily couldn't get out again. She showed them the +clay pots and jars and platters, some of them ornamented with black and +red patterns, and the most wonderful things made of flint and different +sorts of stone, beads, and ornaments, and tools and weapons of all sorts +and kinds. + +'It is really wonderful,' said Cyril patronizingly, 'when you consider +that it's all eight thousand years ago--' + +'I don't understand you,' said the girl. + +'It ISN'T eight thousand years ago,' whispered Jane. 'It's NOW--and +that's just what I don't like about it. I say, DO let's get home again +before anything more happens. You can see for yourselves the charm isn't +here.' + +'What's in that place in the middle?' asked Anthea, struck by a sudden +thought, and pointing to the fence. + +'That's the secret sacred place,' said the girl in a whisper. 'No one +knows what is there. There are many walls, and inside the insidest one +IT is, but no one knows what IT is except the headsmen.' + +'I believe YOU know,' said Cyril, looking at her very hard. + +'I'll give you this if you'll tell me,' said Anthea taking off a +bead-ring which had already been much admired. + +'Yes,' said the girl, catching eagerly at the ring. 'My father is one of +the heads, and I know a water charm to make him talk in his sleep. And +he has spoken. I will tell you. But if they know I have told you they +will kill me. In the insidest inside there is a stone box, and in it +there is the Amulet. None knows whence it came. It came from very far +away.' + +'Have you seen it?' asked Anthea. + +The girl nodded. + +'Is it anything like this?' asked Jane, rashly producing the charm. + +The girl's face turned a sickly greenish-white. + +'Hide it, hide it,' she whispered. 'You must put it back. If they see it +they will kill us all. You for taking it, and me for knowing that there +was such a thing. Oh, woe--woe! why did you ever come here?' + +'Don't be frightened,' said Cyril. 'They shan't know. Jane, don't you +be such a little jack-ape again--that's all. You see what will happen if +you do. Now, tell me--' He turned to the girl, but before he had time to +speak the question there was a loud shout, and a man bounded in through +the opening in the thorn-hedge. + +'Many foes are upon us!' he cried. 'Make ready the defences!' + +His breath only served for that, and he lay panting on the ground. 'Oh, +DO let's go home!' said Jane. 'Look here--I don't care--I WILL!' + +She held up the charm. Fortunately all the strange, fair people were too +busy to notice HER. She held up the charm. And nothing happened. + +'You haven't said the word of power,' said Anthea. + +Jane hastily said it--and still nothing happened. + +'Hold it up towards the East, you silly!' said Robert. + +'Which IS the East?' said Jane, dancing about in her agony of terror. + +Nobody knew. So they opened the fish-bag to ask the Psammead. + +And the bag had only a waterproof sheet in it. + +The Psammead was gone. + +'Hide the sacred thing! Hide it! Hide it!' whispered the girl. + +Cyril shrugged his shoulders, and tried to look as brave as he knew he +ought to feel. + +'Hide it up, Pussy,' he said. 'We are in for it now. We've just got to +stay and see it out.' + + + +CHAPTER 5. THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE + +Here was a horrible position! Four English children, whose proper date +was A.D. 1905, and whose proper address was London, set down in Egypt in +the year 6000 B.C. with no means whatever of getting back into their own +time and place. They could not find the East, and the sun was of no use +at the moment, because some officious person had once explained to Cyril +that the sun did not really set in the West at all--nor rise in the East +either, for the matter of that. + +The Psammead had crept out of the bass-bag when they were not looking +and had basely deserted them. + +An enemy was approaching. There would be a fight. People get killed +in fights, and the idea of taking part in a fight was one that did not +appeal to the children. + +The man who had brought the news of the enemy still lay panting on the +sand. His tongue was hanging out, long and red, like a dog's. The +people of the village were hurriedly filling the gaps in the fence with +thorn-bushes from the heap that seemed to have been piled there +ready for just such a need. They lifted the cluster-thorns with long +poles--much as men at home, nowadays, lift hay with a fork. + +Jane bit her lip and tried to decide not to cry. + +Robert felt in his pocket for a toy pistol and loaded it with a pink +paper cap. It was his only weapon. + +Cyril tightened his belt two holes. + +And Anthea absently took the drooping red roses from the buttonholes of +the others, bit the ends of the stalks, and set them in a pot of water +that stood in the shadow by a hut door. She was always rather silly +about flowers. + +'Look here!' she said. 'I think perhaps the Psammead is really arranging +something for us. I don't believe it would go away and leave us all +alone in the Past. I'm certain it wouldn't.' + +Jane succeeded in deciding not to cry--at any rate yet. + +'But what can we do?' Robert asked. + +'Nothing,' Cyril answered promptly, 'except keep our eyes and ears open. +Look! That runner chap's getting his wind. Let's go and hear what he's +got to say.' + +The runner had risen to his knees and was sitting back on his heels. Now +he stood up and spoke. He began by some respectful remarks addressed to +the heads of the village. His speech got more interesting when he said-- + +'I went out in my raft to snare ibises, and I had gone up the stream an +hour's journey. Then I set my snares and waited. And I heard the sound +of many wings, and looking up, saw many herons circling in the air. And +I saw that they were afraid; so I took thought. A beast may scare one +heron, coming upon it suddenly, but no beast will scare a whole flock of +herons. And still they flew and circled, and would not light. So then I +knew that what scared the herons must be men, and men who knew not our +ways of going softly so as to take the birds and beasts unawares. By +this I knew they were not of our race or of our place. So, leaving my +raft, I crept along the river bank, and at last came upon the strangers. +They are many as the sands of the desert, and their spear-heads shine +red like the sun. They are a terrible people, and their march is towards +US. Having seen this, I ran, and did not stay till I was before you.' + +'These are YOUR folk,' said the headman, turning suddenly and angrily on +Cyril, 'you came as spies for them.' + +'We did NOT,' said Cyril indignantly. 'We wouldn't be spies for +anything. I'm certain these people aren't a bit like us. Are they now?' +he asked the runner. + +'No,' was the answer. 'These men's faces were darkened, and their hair +black as night. Yet these strange children, maybe, are their gods, who +have come before to make ready the way for them.' + +A murmur ran through the crowd. + +'No, NO,' said Cyril again. 'We are on your side. We will help you to +guard your sacred things.' + +The headman seemed impressed by the fact that Cyril knew that there WERE +sacred things to be guarded. He stood a moment gazing at the children. +Then he said-- + +'It is well. And now let all make offering, that we may be strong in +battle.' + +The crowd dispersed, and nine men, wearing antelope-skins, grouped +themselves in front of the opening in the hedge in the middle of +the village. And presently, one by one, the men brought all sorts of +things--hippopotamus flesh, ostrich-feathers, the fruit of the date +palms, red chalk, green chalk, fish from the river, and ibex from the +mountains; and the headman received these gifts. There was another hedge +inside the first, about a yard from it, so that there was a lane inside +between the hedges. And every now and then one of the headmen would +disappear along this lane with full hands and come back with hands +empty. + +'They're making offerings to their Amulet,' said Anthea. 'We'd better +give something too.' + +The pockets of the party, hastily explored, yielded a piece of pink +tape, a bit of sealing-wax, and part of the Waterbury watch that Robert +had not been able to help taking to pieces at Christmas and had never +had time to rearrange. Most boys have a watch in this condition. They +presented their offerings, and Anthea added the red roses. + +The headman who took the things looked at them with awe, especially at +the red roses and the Waterbury-watch fragment. + +'This is a day of very wondrous happenings,' he said. 'I have no more +room in me to be astonished. Our maiden said there was peace between you +and us. But for this coming of a foe we should have made sure.' + +The children shuddered. + +'Now speak. Are you upon our side?' + +'YES. Don't I keep telling you we are?' Robert said. 'Look here. I will +give you a sign. You see this.' He held out the toy pistol. 'I shall +speak to it, and if it answers me you will know that I and the others +are come to guard your sacred thing--that we've just made the offerings +to.' + +'Will that god whose image you hold in your hand speak to you alone, or +shall I also hear it?' asked the man cautiously. + +'You'll be surprised when you DO hear it,' said Robert. 'Now, then.' He +looked at the pistol and said-- + +'If we are to guard the sacred treasure within'--he pointed to the +hedged-in space--'speak with thy loud voice, and we shall obey.' + +He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, for it +was a two-shilling pistol, and the caps were excellent. + +Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on the sand. +The headman who had accepted the test rose first. + +'The voice has spoken,' he said. 'Lead them into the ante-room of the +sacred thing.' + +So now the four children were led in through the opening of the hedge +and round the lane till they came to an opening in the inner hedge, and +they went through an opening in that, and so passed into another lane. + +The thing was built something like this, and all the hedges were of +brushwood and thorns: [Drawing of maze omitted.] + +'It's like the maze at Hampton Court,' whispered Anthea. + +The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the middle of +the maze was round-roofed, and a curtain of skins hung over the doorway. + +'Here you may wait,' said their guide, 'but do not dare to pass the +curtain.' He himself passed it and disappeared. + +'But look here,' whispered Cyril, 'some of us ought to be outside in +case the Psammead turns up.' + +'Don't let's get separated from each other, whatever we do,' said +Anthea. 'It's quite bad enough to be separated from the Psammead. We +can't do anything while that man is in there. Let's all go out into +the village again. We can come back later now we know the way in. +That man'll have to fight like the rest, most likely, if it comes to +fighting. If we find the Psammead we'll go straight home. + +It must be getting late, and I don't much like this mazy place.' + +They went out and told the headman that they would protect the treasure +when the fighting began. And now they looked about them and were able +to see exactly how a first-class worker in flint flakes and notches an +arrow-head or the edge of an axe--an advantage which no other person now +alive has ever enjoyed. The boys found the weapons most interesting. +The arrow-heads were not on arrows such as you shoot from a bow, but +on javelins, for throwing from the hand. The chief weapon was a stone +fastened to a rather short stick something like the things gentlemen +used to carry about and call life-preservers in the days of the +garrotters. + +Then there were long things like spears or lances, with flint +knives--horribly sharp--and flint battle-axes. + +Everyone in the village was so busy that the place was like an ant-heap +when you have walked into it by accident. The women were busy and even +the children. + +Quite suddenly all the air seemed to glow and grow red--it was like +the sudden opening of a furnace door, such as you may see at Woolwich +Arsenal if you ever have the luck to be taken there--and then almost as +suddenly it was as though the furnace doors had been shut. For the sun +had set, and it was night. + +The sun had that abrupt way of setting in Egypt eight thousand years +ago, and I believe it has never been able to break itself of the habit, +and sets in exactly the same manner to the present day. The girl brought +the skins of wild deer and led the children to a heap of dry sedge. + +'My father says they will not attack yet. Sleep!' she said, and it +really seemed a good idea. You may think that in the midst of all these +dangers the children would not have been able to sleep--but somehow, +though they were rather frightened now and then, the feeling was growing +in them--deep down and almost hidden away, but still growing--that the +Psammead was to be trusted, and that they were really and truly safe. +This did not prevent their being quite as much frightened as they could +bear to be without being perfectly miserable. + +'I suppose we'd better go to sleep,' said Robert. 'I don't know what on +earth poor old Nurse will do with us out all night; set the police on +our tracks, I expect. I only wish they could find us! A dozen policemen +would be rather welcome just now. But it's no use getting into a stew +over it,' he added soothingly. 'Good night.' + +And they all fell asleep. + +They were awakened by long, loud, terrible sounds that seemed to come +from everywhere at once--horrible threatening shouts and shrieks +and howls that sounded, as Cyril said later, like the voices of men +thirsting for their enemies' blood. + +'It is the voice of the strange men,' said the girl, coming to them +trembling through the dark. 'They have attacked the walls, and the +thorns have driven them back. My father says they will not try again +till daylight. But they are shouting to frighten us. As though we were +savages! Dwellers in the swamps!' she cried indignantly. + +All night the terrible noise went on, but when the sun rose, as abruptly +as he had set, the sound suddenly ceased. + +The children had hardly time to be glad of this before a shower +of javelins came hurtling over the great thorn-hedge, and everyone +sheltered behind the huts. But next moment another shower of weapons +came from the opposite side, and the crowd rushed to other shelter. +Cyril pulled out a javelin that had stuck in the roof of the hut beside +him. Its head was of brightly burnished copper. + +Then the sound of shouting arose again and the crackle of dried thorns. +The enemy was breaking down the hedge. All the villagers swarmed to the +point whence the crackling and the shouting came; they hurled stones +over the hedges, and short arrows with flint heads. The children had +never before seen men with the fighting light in their eyes. It was very +strange and terrible, and gave you a queer thick feeling in your throat; +it was quite different from the pictures of fights in the illustrated +papers at home. + +It seemed that the shower of stones had driven back the besiegers. The +besieged drew breath, but at that moment the shouting and the crackling +arose on the opposite side of the village and the crowd hastened +to defend that point, and so the fight swayed to and fro across the +village, for the besieged had not the sense to divide their forces as +their enemies had done. + +Cyril noticed that every now and then certain of the fighting-men would +enter the maze, and come out with brighter faces, a braver aspect, and a +more upright carriage. + +'I believe they go and touch the Amulet,' he said. 'You know the +Psammead said it could make people brave.' + +They crept through the maze, and watching they saw that Cyril was right. +A headman was standing in front of the skin curtain, and as the warriors +came before him he murmured a word they could not hear, and touched +their foreheads with something that they could not see. And this +something he held in his hands. And through his fingers they saw the +gleam of a red stone that they knew. + +The fight raged across the thorn-hedge outside. Suddenly there was a +loud and bitter cry. + +'They're in! They're in! The hedge is down!' + +The headman disappeared behind the deer-skin curtain. + +'He's gone to hide it,' said Anthea. 'Oh, Psammead dear, how could you +leave us!' + +Suddenly there was a shriek from inside the hut, and the headman +staggered out white with fear and fled out through the maze. The +children were as white as he. + +'Oh! What is it? What is it?' moaned Anthea. 'Oh, Psammead, how could +you! How could you!' + +And the sound of the fight sank breathlessly, and swelled fiercely all +around. It was like the rising and falling of the waves of the sea. + +Anthea shuddered and said again, 'Oh, Psammead, Psammead!' + +'Well?' said a brisk voice, and the curtain of skins was lifted at one +corner by a furry hand, and out peeped the bat's ears and snail's eyes +of the Psammead. + +Anthea caught it in her arms and a sigh of desperate relief was breathed +by each of the four. + +'Oh! which IS the East!' Anthea said, and she spoke hurriedly, for the +noise of wild fighting drew nearer and nearer. + +'Don't choke me,' said the Psammead, 'come inside.' + +The inside of the hut was pitch dark. + +'I've got a match,' said Cyril, and struck it. The floor of the hut was +of soft, loose sand. + +'I've been asleep here,' said the Psammead; 'most comfortable it's been, +the best sand I've had for a month. It's all right. Everything's all +right. I knew your only chance would be while the fight was going on. +That man won't come back. I bit him, and he thinks I'm an Evil Spirit. +Now you've only got to take the thing and go.' + +The hut was hung with skins. Heaped in the middle were the offerings +that had been given the night before, Anthea's roses fading on the top +of the heap. At one side of the hut stood a large square stone block, +and on it an oblong box of earthenware with strange figures of men and +beasts on it. + +'Is the thing in there?' asked Cyril, as the Psammead pointed a skinny +finger at it. + +'You must judge of that,' said the Psammead. 'The man was just going to +bury the box in the sand when I jumped out at him and bit him.' + +'Light another match, Robert,' said Anthea. 'Now, then quick! which is +the East?' + +'Why, where the sun rises, of course!' + +'But someone told us--' + +'Oh! they'll tell you anything!' said the Psammead impatiently, getting +into its bass-bag and wrapping itself in its waterproof sheet. + +'But we can't see the sun in here, and it isn't rising anyhow,' said +Jane. + +'How you do waste time!' the Psammead said. 'Why, the East's where the +shrine is, of course. THERE!' + +It pointed to the great stone. + +And still the shouting and the clash of stone on metal sounded nearer +and nearer. The children could hear that the headmen had surrounded the +hut to protect their treasure as long as might be from the enemy. But +none dare to come in after the Psammead's sudden fierce biting of the +headman. + +'Now, Jane,' said Cyril, very quickly. 'I'll take the Amulet, you stand +ready to hold up the charm, and be sure you don't let it go as you come +through.' + +He made a step forward, but at that instant a great crackling overhead +ended in a blaze of sunlight. The roof had been broken in at one side, +and great slabs of it were being lifted off by two spears. As the +children trembled and winked in the new light, large dark hands tore +down the wall, and a dark face, with a blobby fat nose, looked over the +gap. Even at that awful moment Anthea had time to think that it was very +like the face of Mr Jacob Absalom, who had sold them the charm in the +shop near Charing Cross. + +'Here is their Amulet,' cried a harsh, strange voice; 'it is this that +makes them strong to fight and brave to die. And what else have we +here--gods or demons?' + +He glared fiercely at the children, and the whites of his eyes were very +white indeed. He had a wet, red copper knife in his teeth. There was not +a moment to lose. + +'Jane, JANE, QUICK!' cried everyone passionately. + +Jane with trembling hands held up the charm towards the East, and Cyril +spoke the word of power. The Amulet grew to a great arch. Out beyond +it was the glaring Egyptian sky, the broken wall, the cruel, dark, +big-nosed face with the red, wet knife in its gleaming teeth. Within the +arch was the dull, faint, greeny-brown of London grass and trees. + +'Hold tight, Jane!' Cyril cried, and he dashed through the arch, +dragging Anthea and the Psammead after him. Robert followed, clutching +Jane. And in the ears of each, as they passed through the arch of the +charm, the sound and fury of battle died out suddenly and utterly, and +they heard only the low, dull, discontented hum of vast London, and the +peeking and patting of the sparrows on the gravel and the voices of the +ragged baby children playing Ring-o'-Roses on the yellow trampled grass. +And the charm was a little charm again in Jane's hand, and there was the +basket with their dinner and the bathbuns lying just where they had left +it. + +'My hat!' said Cyril, drawing a long breath; 'that was something like an +adventure.' + +'It was rather like one, certainly,' said the Psammead. + +They all lay still, breathing in the safe, quiet air of Regent's Park. + +'We'd better go home at once,' said Anthea presently. 'Old Nurse will be +most frightfully anxious. The sun looks about the same as it did when +we started yesterday. We've been away twenty-four hours.' 'The buns are +quite soft still,' said Cyril, feeling one; 'I suppose the dew kept them +fresh.' + +They were not hungry, curiously enough. + +They picked up the dinner-basket and the Psammead-basket, and went +straight home. + +Old Nurse met them with amazement. + +'Well, if ever I did!' she said. 'What's gone wrong? You've soon tired +of your picnic.' + +The children took this to be bitter irony, which means saying the exact +opposite of what you mean in order to make yourself disagreeable; as +when you happen to have a dirty face, and someone says, 'How nice and +clean you look!' + +'We're very sorry,' began Anthea, but old Nurse said-- + +'Oh, bless me, child, I don't care! Please yourselves and you'll please +me. Come in and get your dinners comf'table. I've got a potato on +a-boiling.' + +When she had gone to attend to the potatoes the children looked at each +other. Could it be that old Nurse had so changed that she no longer +cared that they should have been away from home for twenty-four +hours--all night in fact--without any explanation whatever? + +But the Psammead put its head out of its basket and said-- + +'What's the matter? Don't you understand? You come back through the +charm-arch at the same time as you go through it. This isn't tomorrow!' +'Is it still yesterday?' asked Jane. + +'No, it's today. The same as it's always been. It wouldn't do to go +mixing up the present and the Past, and cutting bits out of one to fit +into the other.' + +'Then all that adventure took no time at all?' + +'You can call it that if you like,' said the Psammead. 'It took none of +the modern time, anyhow.' + +That evening Anthea carried up a steak for the learned gentleman's +dinner. She persuaded Beatrice, the maid-of-all-work, who had given her +the bangle with the blue stone, to let her do it. And she stayed and +talked to him, by special invitation, while he ate the dinner. + +She told him the whole adventure, beginning with-- + +'This afternoon we found ourselves on the bank of the River Nile,' and +ending up with, 'And then we remembered how to get back, and there we +were in Regent's Park, and it hadn't taken any time at all.' + +She did not tell anything about the charm or the Psammead, because that +was forbidden, but the story was quite wonderful enough even as it was +to entrance the learned gentleman. + +'You are a most unusual little girl,' he said. 'Who tells you all these +things?' + +'No one,' said Anthea, 'they just happen.' + +'Make-believe,' he said slowly, as one who recalls and pronounces a +long-forgotten word. + +He sat long after she had left him. At last he roused himself with a +start. + +'I really must take a holiday,' he said; 'my nerves must be all out of +order. I actually have a perfectly distinct impression that the little +girl from the rooms below came in and gave me a coherent and graphic +picture of life as I conceive it to have been in pre-dynastic Egypt. +Strange what tricks the mind will play! I shall have to be more +careful.' + +He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a mile walk +before he went back to his work. + + + +CHAPTER 6. THE WAY TO BABYLON + + 'How many miles to Babylon? + Three score and ten! + Can I get there by candle light? + Yes, and back again!' + +Jane was singing to her doll, rocking it to and fro in the house +which she had made for herself and it. The roof of the house was the +dining-table, and the walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hanging +all round, and kept in their places by books laid on their top ends at +the table edge. + +The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. You +know how it is done--with the largest and best tea-tray and the surface +of the stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days when the stair rods +are being cleaned, and the carpet is only held by the nails at the top. +Of course, it is one of the five or six thoroughly tip-top games that +grown-up people are so unjust to--and old Nurse, though a brick in many +respects, was quite enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot down +on the tobogganing long before any of the performers had had half enough +of it. The tea-tray was taken away, and the baffled party entered the +sitting-room, in exactly the mood not to be pleased if they could help +it. + +So Cyril said, 'What a beastly mess!' + +And Robert added, 'Do shut up, Jane!' + +Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try another +song. 'I'm sick to death of that,' said she. + +It was a wet day, so none of the plans for seeing all the sights of +London that can be seen for nothing could be carried out. Everyone had +been thinking all the morning about the wonderful adventures of the day +before, when Jane had held up the charm and it had turned into an arch, +through which they had walked straight out of the present time and +the Regent's Park into the land of Egypt eight thousand years ago. +The memory of yesterday's happenings was still extremely fresh and +frightening, so that everyone hoped that no one would suggest another +excursion into the past, for it seemed to all that yesterday's +adventures were quite enough to last for at least a week. Yet each felt +a little anxious that the others should not think it was afraid, and +presently Cyril, who really was not a coward, began to see that it would +not be at all nice if he should have to think himself one. So he said-- + +'I say--about that charm--Jane--come out. We ought to talk about it, +anyhow.' + +'Oh, if that's all,' said Robert. + +Jane obediently wriggled to the front of her house and sat there. + +She felt for the charm, to make sure that it was still round her neck. + +'It ISN'T all,' said Cyril, saying much more than he meant because he +thought Robert's tone had been rude--as indeed it had. + +'We ought to go and look for that Amulet. What's the good of having a +first-class charm and keeping it idle, just eating its head off in the +stable.' + +'I'M game for anything, of course,' said Robert; but he added, with +a fine air of chivalry, 'only I don't think the girls are keen today +somehow.' + +'Oh, yes; I am,' said Anthea hurriedly. 'If you think I'm afraid, I'm +not.' + +'I am though,' said Jane heavily; 'I didn't like it, and I won't go +there again--not for anything I won't.' + +'We shouldn't go THERE again, silly,' said Cyril; 'it would be some +other place.' + +'I daresay; a place with lions and tigers in it as likely as not.' + +Seeing Jane so frightened, made the others feel quite brave. They said +they were certain they ought to go. + +'It's so ungrateful to the Psammead not to,' Anthea added, a little +primly. + +Jane stood up. She was desperate. + +'I won't!' she cried; 'I won't, I won't, I won't! If you make me I'll +scream and I'll scream, and I'll tell old Nurse, and I'll get her to +burn the charm in the kitchen fire. So now, then!' + +You can imagine how furious everyone was with Jane for feeling what each +of them had felt all the morning. In each breast the same thought arose, +'No one can say it's OUR fault.' And they at once began to show Jane +how angry they all felt that all the fault was hers. This made them feel +quite brave. + + 'Tell-tale tit, its tongue shall be split, + And all the dogs in our town shall have a little bit,' + +sang Robert. + +'It's always the way if you have girls in anything.' Cyril spoke in a +cold displeasure that was worse than Robert's cruel quotation, and even +Anthea said, 'Well, I'M not afraid if I AM a girl,' which of course, was +the most cutting thing of all. + +Jane picked up her doll and faced the others with what is sometimes +called the courage of despair. + +'I don't care,' she said; 'I won't, so there! It's just silly going +to places when you don't want to, and when you don't know what they're +going to be like! You can laugh at me as much as you like. You're +beasts--and I hate you all!' + +With these awful words she went out and banged the door. + +Then the others would not look at each other, and they did not feel so +brave as they had done. + +Cyril took up a book, but it was not interesting to read. Robert kicked +a chair-leg absently. His feet were always eloquent in moments of +emotion. Anthea stood pleating the end of the tablecloth into folds--she +seemed earnestly anxious to get all the pleats the same size. The sound +of Jane's sobs had died away. + +Suddenly Anthea said, 'Oh! let it be "pax"--poor little Pussy--you know +she's the youngest.' + +'She called us beasts,' said Robert, kicking the chair suddenly. + +'Well, said Cyril, who was subject to passing fits of justice, +'we began, you know. At least you did.' Cyril's justice was always +uncompromising. + +'I'm not going to say I'm sorry if you mean that,' said Robert, and the +chair-leg cracked to the kick he gave as he said it. + +'Oh, do let's,' said Anthea, 'we're three to one, and Mother does so +hate it if we row. Come on. I'll say I'm sorry first, though I didn't +say anything, hardly.' + +'All right, let's get it over,' said Cyril, opening the +door.'Hi--you--Pussy!' + +Far away up the stairs a voice could be heard singing brokenly, but +still defiantly-- + + 'How many miles (sniff) to Babylon? + Three score and ten! (sniff) + Can I get there by candle light? + Yes (sniff), and back again!' + +It was trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would not +give herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, taking +three at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the top +step of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying to +sing. + +'I say, Pussy, let it be pax! We're sorry if you are--' + +It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being the +youngest was entitled to this ceremonial. Anthea added a special apology +of her own. + +'I'm sorry if I was a pig, Pussy dear,' she said--'especially because +in my really and truly inside mind I've been feeling a little as if +I'd rather not go into the Past again either. But then, do think. If we +don't go we shan't get the Amulet, and oh, Pussy, think if we could only +get Father and Mother and The Lamb safe back! We MUST go, but we'll wait +a day or two if you like and then perhaps you'll feel braver.' + +'Raw meat makes you brave, however cowardly you are,' said Robert, to +show that there was now no ill-feeling, 'and cranberries--that's +what Tartars eat, and they're so brave it's simply awful. I suppose +cranberries are only for Christmas time, but I'll ask old Nurse to let +you have your chop very raw if you like.' + +'I think I could be brave without that,' said Jane hastily; she hated +underdone meat. 'I'll try.' + +At this moment the door of the learned gentleman's room opened, and he +looked out. + +'Excuse me,' he said, in that gentle, polite weary voice of his, 'but +was I mistaken in thinking that I caught a familiar word just now? Were +you not singing some old ballad of Babylon?' + +'No,' said Robert, 'at least Jane was singing "How many miles," but I +shouldn't have thought you could have heard the words for--' + +He would have said, 'for the sniffing,' but Anthea pinched him just in +time. + +'I did not hear ALL the words,' said the learned gentleman. 'I wonder +would you recite them to me?' + +So they all said together-- + + 'How many miles to Babylon? + Three score and ten! + Can I get there by candle light? + Yes, and back again!' + +'I wish one could,' the learned gentleman said with a sigh. + +'Can't you?' asked Jane. + +'Babylon has fallen,' he answered with a sigh. 'You know it was once a +great and beautiful city, and the centre of learning and Art, and now +it is only ruins, and so covered up with earth that people are not even +agreed as to where it once stood.' + +He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look in +them, as though he could see through the staircase window the splendour +and glory of ancient Babylon. + +'I say,' Cyril remarked abruptly. 'You know that charm we showed you, +and you told us how to say the name that's on it?' + +'Yes!' + +'Well, do you think that charm was ever in Babylon?' + +'It's quite possible,' the learned gentleman replied. 'Such charms have +been found in very early Egyptian tombs, yet their origin has not been +accurately determined as Egyptian. They may have been brought from Asia. +Or, supposing the charm to have been fashioned in Egypt, it might very +well have been carried to Babylon by some friendly embassy, or brought +back by the Babylonish army from some Egyptian campaign as part of the +spoils of war. The inscription may be much later than the charm. Oh yes! +it is a pleasant fancy, that that splendid specimen of yours was once +used amid Babylonish surroundings.' The others looked at each other, but +it was Jane who spoke. + +'Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and throwing +things about?' For she had read the thoughts of the others by the +unerring light of her own fears. + +'The Babylonians were certainly more gentle than the Assyrians,' said +the learned gentleman. 'And they were not savages by any means. A very +high level of culture,' he looked doubtfully at his audience and went +on, 'I mean that they made beautiful statues and jewellery, and +built splendid palaces. And they were very learned--they had glorious +libraries and high towers for the purpose of astrological and +astronomical observation.' + +'Er?' said Robert. + +'I mean for--star-gazing and fortune-telling,' said the learned +gentleman, 'and there were temples and beautiful hanging gardens--' + +'I'll go to Babylon if you like,' said Jane abruptly, and the others +hastened to say 'Done!' before she should have time to change her mind. + +'Ah,' said the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, 'one can go so +far in dreams, when one is young.' He sighed again, and then adding with +a laboured briskness, 'I hope you'll have a--a--jolly game,' he went +into his room and shut the door. + +'He said "jolly" as if it was a foreign language,' said Cyril. 'Come +on, let's get the Psammead and go now. I think Babylon seems a most +frightfully jolly place to go to.' + +So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag with the waterproof +sheet, in case of inclement weather in Babylon. It was very cross, but +it said it would as soon go to Babylon as anywhere else. 'The sand is +good thereabouts,' it added. + +Then Jane held up the charm, and Cyril said-- + +'We want to go to Babylon to look for the part of you that was lost. +Will you please let us go there through you?' + +'Please put us down just outside,' said Jane hastily; 'and then if we +don't like it we needn't go inside.' + +'Don't be all day,' said the Psammead. + +So Anthea hastily uttered the word of power, without which the charm +could do nothing. + +'Ur--Hekau--Setcheh!' she said softly, and as she spoke the charm grew +into an arch so tall that the top of it was close against the bedroom +ceiling. Outside the arch was the bedroom painted chest-of-drawers +and the Kidderminster carpet, and the washhand-stand with the riveted +willow-pattern jug, and the faded curtains, and the dull light of +indoors on a wet day. Through the arch showed the gleam of soft green +leaves and white blossoms. They stepped forward quite happily. Even Jane +felt that this did not look like lions, and her hand hardly trembled +at all as she held the charm for the others to go through, and last, +slipped through herself, and hung the charm, now grown small again, +round her neck. + +The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafed +fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, all +white-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long green grass under +their feet grew crocuses and lilies, and strange blue flowers. In the +branches overhead thrushes and blackbirds were singing, and the coo of a +pigeon came softly to them in the green quietness of the orchard. + +'Oh, how perfectly lovely!' cried Anthea. + +'Why, it's like home exactly--I mean England--only everything's bluer, +and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.' + +The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane +admitted that it was all very pretty. + +'I'm certain there's nothing to be frightened of here,' said Anthea. + +'I don't know,' said Jane. 'I suppose the fruit-trees go on just the +same even when people are killing each other. I didn't half like what +the learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens. I suppose they +have gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn't one.' + +'Of course it isn't,' said Cyril. 'The hanging gardens are just gardens +hung up--_I_ think on chains between houses, don't you know, like trays. +Come on; let's get somewhere.' + +They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could see was +nothing but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end of their orchard +was another one, only separated from theirs by a little stream of +clear water. They jumped this, and went on. Cyril, who was fond of +gardening--which meant that he liked to watch the gardener at work--was +able to command the respect of the others by telling them the names of +a good many trees. There were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots, +and fig-trees with their big five-fingered leaves. And every now and +then the children had to cross another brook. + +'It's like between the squares in Through the Looking-glass,' said +Anthea. + +At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the other +orchards. It had a low building in one corner. + +'These are vines,' said Cyril superiorly, 'and I know this is a +vineyard. I shouldn't wonder if there was a wine-press inside that place +over there.' + +At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, very +rough, and not at all like the roads you are used to. It had cypress +trees and acacia trees along it, and a sort of hedge of tamarisks, +like those you see on the road between Nice and Cannes, or near +Littlehampton, if you've only been as far as that. + +And now in front of them they could see a great mass of buildings. +There were scattered houses of wood and stone here and there among green +orchards, and beyond these a great wall that shone red in the early +morning sun. The wall was enormously high--more than half the height of +St Paul's--and in the wall were set enormous gates that shone like gold +as the rising sun beat on them. Each gate had a solid square tower on +each side of it that stood out from the wall and rose above it. Beyond +the wall were more towers and houses, gleaming with gold and bright +colours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue swirl of a great river. +And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, that the river +flowed out from the town under a great arch in the wall. + +'Those feathery things along by the water are palms,' said Cyril +instructively. + +'Oh, yes; you know everything,' Robert replied. 'What's all that +grey-green stuff you see away over there, where it's all flat and +sandy?' + +'All right,' said Cyril loftily, '_I_ don't want to tell you anything. I +only thought you'd like to know a palm-tree when you saw it again.' + +'Look!' cried Anthea; 'they're opening the gates.' + +And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and instantly +a little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and along the road +towards them. + +The children, with one accord, crouched behind the tamarisk hedge. + +'I don't like the sound of those gates,' said Jane. 'Fancy being inside +when they shut. You'd never get out.' + +'You've got an arch of your own to go out by,' the Psammead put its head +out of the basket to remind her. 'Don't behave so like a girl. If I were +you I should just march right into the town and ask to see the king.' + +There was something at once simple and grand about this idea, and it +pleased everyone. + +So when the work-people had passed (they WERE work-people, the children +felt sure, because they were dressed so plainly--just one long blue +shirt thing--of blue or yellow) the four children marched boldly up to +the brazen gate between the towers. The arch above the gate was quite a +tunnel, the walls were so thick. + +'Courage,' said Cyril. 'Step out. It's no use trying to sneak past. Be +bold!' + +Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into 'The British +Grenadiers', and to its quick-step they approached the gates of Babylon. + + 'Some talk of Alexander, + And some of Hercules, + Of Hector and Lysander, + And such great names as these. + But of all the gallant heroes...' + +This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in bright +armour suddenly barred their way with crossed spears. + +'Who goes there?' they said. + +(I think I must have explained to you before how it was that the +children were always able to understand the language of any place they +might happen to be in, and to be themselves understood. If not, I have +no time to explain it now.) + +'We come from very far,' said Cyril mechanically. 'From the Empire where +the sun never sets, and we want to see your King.' + +'If it's quite convenient,' amended Anthea. 'The King (may he live for +ever!),' said the gatekeeper, 'is gone to fetch home his fourteenth +wife. Where on earth have you come from not to know that?' + +'The Queen then,' said Anthea hurriedly, and not taking any notice of +the question as to where they had come from. + +'The Queen,' said the gatekeeper, '(may she live for ever!) gives +audience today three hours after sunrising.' + +'But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?' asked Cyril. + +The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared less +interested in them than they could have thought possible. But the man +who had crossed spears with him to bar the children's way was more +human. + +'Let them go in and look about them,' he said. 'I'll wager my best sword +they've never seen anything to come near our little--village.' He said +it in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean the +'herring pond'. + +The gatekeeper hesitated. + +'They're only children, after all,' said the other, who had children of +his own. 'Let me off for a few minutes, Captain, and I'll take them +to my place and see if my good woman can't fit them up in something a +little less outlandish than their present rig. Then they can have a look +round without being mobbed. May I go?' + +'Oh yes, if you like,' said the Captain, 'but don't be all day.' + +The man led them through the dark arch into the town. And it was very +different from London. For one thing, everything in London seems to be +patched up out of odds and ends, but these houses seemed to have been +built by people who liked the same sort of things. Not that they were +all alike, for though all were squarish, they were of different sizes, +and decorated in all sorts of different ways, some with paintings in +bright colours, some with black and silver designs. There were terraces, +and gardens, and balconies, and open spaces with trees. Their guide took +them to a little house in a back street, where a kind-faced woman sat +spinning at the door of a very dark room. + +'Here,' he said, 'just lend these children a mantle each, so that they +can go about and see the place till the Queen's audience begins. You +leave that wool for a bit, and show them round if you like. I must be +off now.' + +The woman did as she was told, and the four children, wrapped in fringed +mantles, went with her all about the town, and oh! how I wish I had time +to tell you all that they saw. It was all so wonderfully different +from anything you have ever seen. For one thing, all the houses were +dazzlingly bright, and many of them covered with pictures. Some had +great creatures carved in stone at each side of the door. Then the +people--there were no black frock-coats and tall hats; no dingy coats +and skirts of good, useful, ugly stuffs warranted to wear. Everyone's +clothes were bright and beautiful with blue and scarlet and green and +gold. + +The market was brighter than you would think anything could be. There +were stalls for everything you could possibly want--and for a great many +things that if you wanted here and now, want would be your master. There +were pineapples and peaches in heaps--and stalls of crockery and glass +things, beautiful shapes and glorious colours, there were stalls for +necklaces, and clasps, and bracelets, and brooches, for woven stuffs, +and furs, and embroidered linen. The children had never seen half so +many beautiful things together, even at Liberty's. It seemed no time at +all before the woman said-- + +'It's nearly time now. We ought to be getting on towards the palace. +It's as well to be early.' So they went to the palace, and when they got +there it was more splendid than anything they had seen yet. + +For it was glowing with colours, and with gold and silver and black and +white--like some magnificent embroidery. Flight after flight of broad +marble steps led up to it, and at the edges of the stairs stood great +images, twenty times as big as a man--images of men with wings like +chain armour, and hawks' heads, and winged men with the heads of dogs. +And there were the statues of great kings. + +Between the flights of steps were terraces where fountains played, and +the Queen's Guard in white and scarlet, and armour that shone like gold, +stood by twos lining the way up the stairs; and a great body of them was +massed by the vast door of the palace itself, where it stood glittering +like an impossibly radiant peacock in the noon-day sun. + +All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of the +Queen. Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy flounces, poor +folks in plain and simple clothes, dandies with beards oiled and curled. + +And Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane, went with the crowd. + +At the gate of the palace the Psammead put one eye cautiously out of the +basket and whispered-- + +'I can't be bothered with queens. I'll go home with this lady. I'm sure +she'll get me some sand if you ask her to.' + +'Oh! don't leave us,' said Jane. The woman was giving some last +instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane. + +'Don't be a little muff,' said the Psammead quite fiercely. 'It's not a +bit of good your having a charm. You never use it. If you want me you've +only got to say the name of power and ask the charm to bring me to you.' + +'I'd rather go with you,' said Jane. And it was the most surprising +thing she had ever said in her life. + +Everyone opened its mouth without thinking of manners, and Anthea, who +was peeping into the Psammead's basket, saw that its mouth opened wider +than anybody's. + +'You needn't gawp like that,' Jane went on. 'I'm not going to be +bothered with queens any more than IT is. And I know, wherever it is, +it'll take jolly good care that it's safe.' + +'She's right there,' said everyone, for they had observed that the +Psammead had a way of knowing which side its bread was buttered. + +She turned to the woman and said, 'You'll take me home with you, won't +you? And let me play with your little girls till the others have done +with the Queen.' + +'Surely I will, little heart!' said the woman. + +And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, who +took the woman's hand, and trotted contentedly away with the Psammead's +bag under the other arm. + +The others stood looking after her till she, the woman, and the basket +were lost in the many-coloured crowd. Then Anthea turned once more to +the palace's magnificent doorway and said-- + +'Let's ask the porter to take care of our Babylonian overcoats.' + +So they took off the garments that the woman had lent them and stood +amid the jostling petitioners of the Queen in their own English frocks +and coats and hats and boots. + +'We want to see the Queen,' said Cyril; 'we come from the far Empire +where the sun never sets!' + +A murmur of surprise and a thrill of excitement ran through the crowd. +The door-porter spoke to a black man, he spoke to someone else. There +was a whispering, waiting pause. Then a big man, with a cleanly-shaven +face, beckoned them from the top of a flight of red marble steps. + +They went up; the boots of Robert clattering more than usual because he +was so nervous. A door swung open, a curtain was drawn back. A double +line of bowing forms in gorgeous raiment formed a lane that led to the +steps of the throne, and as the children advanced hurriedly there came +from the throne a voice very sweet and kind. + +'Three children from the land where the sun never sets! Let them draw +hither without fear.' + +In another minute they were kneeling at the throne's foot, saying, +'O Queen, live for ever!' exactly as the woman had taught them. And a +splendid dream-lady, all gold and silver and jewels and snowy drift of +veils, was raising Anthea, and saying-- + +'Don't be frightened, I really am SO glad you came! The land where +the sun never sets! I am delighted to see you! I was getting quite too +dreadfully bored for anything!' + +And behind Anthea the kneeling Cyril whispered in the ears of the +respectful Robert-- + +'Bobs, don't say anything to Panther. It's no use upsetting her, but we +didn't ask for Jane's address, and the Psammead's with her.' + +'Well,' whispered Robert, 'the charm can bring them to us at any moment. +IT said so.' + +'Oh, yes,' whispered Cyril, in miserable derision, 'WE'RE all right, of +course. So we are! Oh, yes! If we'd only GOT the charm.' + +Then Robert saw, and he murmured, 'Crikey!' at the foot of the throne of +Babylon; while Cyril hoarsely whispered the plain English fact-- + +'Jane's got the charm round her neck, you silly cuckoo.' + +'Crikey!' Robert repeated in heart-broken undertones. + + + +CHAPTER 7. 'THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT' + +The Queen threw three of the red and gold embroidered cushions off the +throne on to the marble steps that led up to it. + +'Just make yourselves comfortable there,' she said. 'I'm simply dying +to talk to you, and to hear all about your wonderful country and how you +got here, and everything, but I have to do justice every morning. Such a +bore, isn't it? Do you do justice in your own country?' + +'No, said Cyril; 'at least of course we try to, but not in this public +sort of way, only in private.' 'Ah, yes,' said the Queen, 'I should +much prefer a private audience myself--much easier to manage. But public +opinion has to be considered. Doing justice is very hard work, even when +you're brought up to it.' + +'We don't do justice, but we have to do scales, Jane and me,' said +Anthea, 'twenty minutes a day. It's simply horrid.' + +'What are scales?' asked the Queen, 'and what is Jane?' + +'Jane is my little sister. One of the guards-at-the-gate's wife is +taking care of her. And scales are music.' + +'I never heard of the instrument,' said the Queen. 'Do you sing?' + +'Oh, yes. We can sing in parts,' said Anthea. + +'That IS magic,' said the Queen. 'How many parts are you each cut into +before you do it?' + +'We aren't cut at all,' said Robert hastily. 'We couldn't sing if we +were. We'll show you afterwards.' + +'So you shall, and now sit quiet like dear children and hear me do +justice. The way I do it has always been admired. I oughtn't to say that +ought I? Sounds so conceited. But I don't mind with you, dears. Somehow +I feel as though I'd known you quite a long time already.' + +The Queen settled herself on her throne and made a signal to her +attendants. The children, whispering together among the cushions on the +steps of the throne, decided that she was very beautiful and very kind, +but perhaps just the least bit flighty. + +The first person who came to ask for justice was a woman whose brother +had taken the money the father had left for her. The brother said it +was the uncle who had the money. There was a good deal of talk and the +children were growing rather bored, when the Queen suddenly clapped her +hands, and said-- + +'Put both the men in prison till one of them owns up that the other is +innocent.' + +'But suppose they both did it?' Cyril could not help interrupting. + +'Then prison's the best place for them,' said the Queen. + +'But suppose neither did it.' + +'That's impossible,' said the Queen; 'a thing's not done unless someone +does it. And you mustn't interrupt.' + +Then came a woman, in tears, with a torn veil and real ashes on her +head--at least Anthea thought so, but it may have been only road-dust. +She complained that her husband was in prison. + +'What for?' said the Queen. + +'They SAID it was for speaking evil of your Majesty,' said the woman, +'but it wasn't. Someone had a spite against him. That was what it was.' + +'How do you know he hadn't spoken evil of me?' said the Queen. + +'No one could,' said the woman simply, 'when they'd once seen your +beautiful face.' + +'Let the man out,' said the Queen, smiling. 'Next case.' + +The next case was that of a boy who had stolen a fox. 'Like the Spartan +boy,' whispered Robert. But the Queen ruled that nobody could have any +possible reason for owning a fox, and still less for stealing one. And +she did not believe that there were any foxes in Babylon; she, at any +rate, had never seen one. So the boy was released. + +The people came to the Queen about all sorts of family quarrels and +neighbourly misunderstandings--from a fight between brothers over the +division of an inheritance, to the dishonest and unfriendly conduct of +a woman who had borrowed a cooking-pot at the last New Year's festival, +and not returned it yet. + +And the Queen decided everything, very, very decidedly indeed. At last +she clapped her hands quite suddenly and with extreme loudness, and +said-- + +'The audience is over for today.' + +Everyone said, 'May the Queen live for ever!' and went out. + +And the children were left alone in the justice-hall with the Queen of +Babylon and her ladies. + +'There!' said the Queen, with a long sigh of relief. 'THAT'S over! I +couldn't have done another stitch of justice if you'd offered me the +crown of Egypt! Now come into the garden, and we'll have a nice, long, +cosy talk.' + +She led them through long, narrow corridors whose walls they somehow +felt, were very, very thick, into a sort of garden courtyard. There were +thick shrubs closely planted, and roses were trained over trellises, and +made a pleasant shade--needed, indeed, for already the sun was as hot as +it is in England in August at the seaside. + +Slaves spread cushions on a low, marble terrace, and a big man with a +smooth face served cool drink in cups of gold studded with beryls. He +drank a little from the Queen's cup before handing it to her. + +'That's rather a nasty trick,' whispered Robert, who had been carefully +taught never to drink out of one of the nice, shiny, metal cups that are +chained to the London drinking fountains without first rinsing it out +thoroughly. + +The Queen overheard him. + +'Not at all,' said she. 'Ritti-Marduk is a very clean man. And one has +to have SOME ONE as taster, you know, because of poison.' + +The word made the children feel rather creepy; but Ritti-Marduk +had tasted all the cups, so they felt pretty safe. The drink was +delicious--very cold, and tasting like lemonade and partly like penny +ices. + +'Leave us,' said the Queen. And all the Court ladies, in their +beautiful, many-folded, many-coloured, fringed dresses, filed out +slowly, and the children were left alone with the Queen. + +'Now,' she said, 'tell me all about yourselves.' + +They looked at each other. + +'You, Bobs,' said Cyril. + +'No--Anthea,' said Robert. + +'No--you--Cyril,' said Anthea. 'Don't you remember how pleased the Queen +of India was when you told her all about us?' + +Cyril muttered that it was all very well, and so it was. For when he had +told the tale of the Phoenix and the Carpet to the Ranee, it had been +only the truth--and all the truth that he had to tell. But now it +was not easy to tell a convincing story without mentioning the +Amulet--which, of course, it wouldn't have done to mention--and without +owning that they were really living in London, about 2,500 years later +than the time they were talking in. + +Cyril took refuge in the tale of the Psammead and its wonderful power of +making wishes come true. The children had never been able to tell anyone +before, and Cyril was surprised to find that the spell which kept them +silent in London did not work here. 'Something to do with our being in +the Past, I suppose,' he said to himself. + +'This is MOST interesting,' said the Queen. 'We must have this Psammead +for the banquet tonight. Its performance will be one of the most popular +turns in the whole programme. Where is it?' + +Anthea explained that they did not know; also why it was that they did +not know. + +'Oh, THAT'S quite simple,' said the Queen, and everyone breathed a deep +sigh of relief as she said it. + +'Ritti-Marduk shall run down to the gates and find out which guard your +sister went home with.' + +'Might he'--Anthea's voice was tremulous--'might he--would it interfere +with his meal-times, or anything like that, if he went NOW?' + +'Of course he shall go now. He may think himself lucky if he gets his +meals at any time,' said the Queen heartily, and clapped her hands. + +'May I send a letter?' asked Cyril, pulling out a red-backed penny +account-book, and feeling in his pockets for a stump of pencil that he +knew was in one of them. + +'By all means. I'll call my scribe.' + +'Oh, I can scribe right enough, thanks,' said Cyril, finding the pencil +and licking its point. He even had to bite the wood a little, for it was +very blunt. + +'Oh, you clever, clever boy!' said the Queen. 'DO let me watch you do +it!' + +Cyril wrote on a leaf of the book--it was of rough, woolly paper, with +hairs that stuck out and would have got in his pen if he had been using +one, and ruled for accounts. + +'Hide IT most carefully before you come here,' he wrote, 'and don't +mention it--and destroy this letter. Everything is going A1. The Queen +is a fair treat. There's nothing to be afraid of.' + +'What curious characters, and what a strange flat surface!' said the +Queen. 'What have you inscribed?' + +'I've 'scribed,' replied Cyril cautiously, 'that you are fair, and +a--and like a--like a festival; and that she need not be afraid, and +that she is to come at once.' + +Ritti-Marduk, who had come in and had stood waiting while Cyril wrote, +his Babylonish eyes nearly starting out of his Babylonish head, now took +the letter, with some reluctance. + +'O Queen, live for ever! Is it a charm?' he timidly asked. 'A strong +charm, most great lady?' + +'YES,' said Robert, unexpectedly, 'it IS a charm, but it won't hurt +anyone until you've given it to Jane. And then she'll destroy it, +so that it CAN'T hurt anyone. It's most awful strong!--as strong +as--Peppermint!' he ended abruptly. + +'I know not the god,' said Ritti-Marduk, bending timorously. + +'She'll tear it up directly she gets it,' said Robert, 'That'll end the +charm. You needn't be afraid if you go now.' + +Ritti-Marduk went, seeming only partly satisfied; and then the Queen +began to admire the penny account-book and the bit of pencil in so +marked and significant a way that Cyril felt he could not do less than +press them upon her as a gift. She ruffled the leaves delightedly. + +'What a wonderful substance!' she said. 'And with this style you make +charms? Make a charm for me! Do you know,' her voice sank to a whisper, +'the names of the great ones of your own far country?' + +'Rather!' said Cyril, and hastily wrote the names of Alfred the Great, +Shakespeare, Nelson, Gordon, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr Rudyard Kipling, and +Mr Sherlock Holmes, while the Queen watched him with 'unbaited breath', +as Anthea said afterwards. + +She took the book and hid it reverently among the bright folds of her +gown. + +'You shall teach me later to say the great names,' she said. 'And the +names of their Ministers--perhaps the great Nisroch is one of them?' + +'I don't think so,' said Cyril. 'Mr Campbell Bannerman's Prime Minister +and Mr Burns a Minister, and so is the Archbishop of Canterbury, I +think, but I'm not sure--and Dr Parker was one, I know, and--' + +'No more,' said the Queen, putting her hands to her ears. 'My head's +going round with all those great names. You shall teach them to me +later--because of course you'll make us a nice long visit now you have +come, won't you? Now tell me--but no, I am quite tired out with your +being so clever. Besides, I'm sure you'd like ME to tell YOU something, +wouldn't you?' + +'Yes,' said Anthea. 'I want to know how it is that the King has gone--' + +'Excuse me, but you should say "the King may-he-live-for-ever",' said +the Queen gently. + +'I beg your pardon,' Anthea hastened to say--'the King +may-he-live-for-ever has gone to fetch home his fourteenth wife? I don't +think even Bluebeard had as many as that. And, besides, he hasn't killed +YOU at any rate.' + +The Queen looked bewildered. + +'She means,' explained Robert, 'that English kings only have one +wife--at least, Henry the Eighth had seven or eight, but not all at +once.' + +'In our country,' said the Queen scornfully, 'a king would not reign +a day who had only one wife. No one would respect him, and quite right +too.' + +'Then are all the other thirteen alive?' asked Anthea. + +'Of course they are--poor mean-spirited things! I don't associate with +them, of course, I am the Queen: they're only the wives.' + +'I see,' said Anthea, gasping. + +'But oh, my dears,' the Queen went on, 'such a to-do as there's been +about this last wife! You never did! It really was TOO funny. We wanted +an Egyptian princess. The King may-he-live-for-ever has got a wife from +most of the important nations, and he had set his heart on an Egyptian +one to complete his collection. Well, of course, to begin with, we +sent a handsome present of gold. The Egyptian king sent back some +horses--quite a few; he's fearfully stingy!--and he said he liked the +gold very much, but what they were really short of was lapis lazuli, so +of course we sent him some. But by that time he'd begun to use the gold +to cover the beams of the roof of the Temple of the Sun-God, and he +hadn't nearly enough to finish the job, so we sent some more. And so it +went on, oh, for years. You see each journey takes at least six months. +And at last we asked the hand of his daughter in marriage.' + +'Yes, and then?' said Anthea, who wanted to get to the princess part of +the story. + +'Well, then,' said the Queen, 'when he'd got everything out of us that +he could, and only given the meanest presents in return, he sent to +say he would esteem the honour of an alliance very highly, only +unfortunately he hadn't any daughter, but he hoped one would be born +soon, and if so, she should certainly be reserved for the King of +Babylon!' + +'What a trick!' said Cyril. + +'Yes, wasn't it? So then we said his sister would do, and then there +were more gifts and more journeys; and now at last the tiresome, +black-haired thing is coming, and the King may-he-live-for-ever has gone +seven days' journey to meet her at Carchemish. And he's gone in his best +chariot, the one inlaid with lapis lazuli and gold, with the gold-plated +wheels and onyx-studded hubs--much too great an honour in my opinion. +She'll be here tonight; there'll be a grand banquet to celebrate her +arrival. SHE won't be present, of course. She'll be having her baths and +her anointings, and all that sort of thing. We always clean our foreign +brides very carefully. It takes two or three weeks. Now it's dinnertime, +and you shall eat with me, for I can see that you are of high rank.' +She led them into a dark, cool hall, with many cushions on the floor. On +these they sat and low tables were brought--beautiful tables of smooth, +blue stone mounted in gold. On these, golden trays were placed; but +there were no knives, or forks, or spoons. The children expected the +Queen to call for them; but no. She just ate with her fingers, and as +the first dish was a great tray of boiled corn, and meat and raisins all +mixed up together, and melted fat poured all over the tray, it was found +difficult to follow her example with anything like what we are used to +think of as good table manners. There were stewed quinces afterwards, +and dates in syrup, and thick yellowy cream. It was the kind of dinner +you hardly ever get in Fitzroy Street. + +After dinner everybody went to sleep, even the children. + +The Queen awoke with a start. + +'Good gracious!' she cried, 'what a time we've slept! I must rush off +and dress for the banquet. I shan't have much more than time.' + +'Hasn't Ritti-Marduk got back with our sister and the Psammead yet?' +Anthea asked. + +'I QUITE forgot to ask. I'm sorry,' said the Queen. 'And of course +they wouldn't announce her unless I told them to, except during justice +hours. I expect she's waiting outside. I'll see.' + +Ritti-Marduk came in a moment later. + +'I regret,' he said, 'that I have been unable to find your sister. The +beast she bears with her in a basket has bitten the child of the guard, +and your sister and the beast set out to come to you. The police say +they have a clue. No doubt we shall have news of her in a few weeks.' He +bowed and withdrew. + +The horror of this threefold loss--Jane, the Psammead, and the +Amulet--gave the children something to talk about while the Queen was +dressing. I shall not report their conversation; it was very gloomy. +Everyone repeated himself several times, and the discussion ended in +each of them blaming the other two for having let Jane go. You know the +sort of talk it was, don't you? At last Cyril said-- + +'After all, she's with the Psammead, so SHE'S all right. The Psammead is +jolly careful of itself too. And it isn't as if we were in any danger. +Let's try to buck up and enjoy the banquet.' + +They did enjoy the banquet. They had a beautiful bath, which was +delicious, were heavily oiled all over, including their hair, and that +was most unpleasant. Then, they dressed again and were presented to the +King, who was most affable. The banquet was long; there were all sorts +of nice things to eat, and everybody seemed to eat and drink a good +deal. Everyone lay on cushions and couches, ladies on one side and +gentlemen on the other; and after the eating was done each lady went and +sat by some gentleman, who seemed to be her sweetheart or her husband, +for they were very affectionate to each other. The Court dresses had +gold threads woven in them, very bright and beautiful. + +The middle of the room was left clear, and different people came and did +amusing things. There were conjurers and jugglers and snake-charmers, +which last Anthea did not like at all. + +When it got dark torches were lighted. Cedar splinters dipped in oil +blazed in copper dishes set high on poles. + +Then there was a dancer, who hardly danced at all, only just struck +attitudes. She had hardly any clothes, and was not at all pretty. The +children were rather bored by her, but everyone else was delighted, +including the King. + +'By the beard of Nimrod!' he cried, 'ask what you like girl, and you +shall have it!' + +'I want nothing,' said the dancer; 'the honour of having pleased the +King may-he-live-for-ever is reward enough for me.' + +And the King was so pleased with this modest and sensible reply that he +gave her the gold collar off his own neck. + +'I say!' said Cyril, awed by the magnificence of the gift. + +'It's all right,' whispered the Queen, 'it's not his best collar by any +means. We always keep a stock of cheap jewellery for these occasions. +And now--you promised to sing us something. Would you like my minstrels +to accompany you?' + +'No, thank you,' said Anthea quickly. The minstrels had been playing off +and on all the time, and their music reminded Anthea of the band she and +the others had once had on the fifth of November--with penny horns, +a tin whistle, a tea-tray, the tongs, a policeman's rattle, and a toy +drum. They had enjoyed this band very much at the time. But it was quite +different when someone else was making the same kind of music. +Anthea understood now that Father had not been really heartless and +unreasonable when he had told them to stop that infuriating din. + +'What shall we sing?' Cyril was asking. + +'Sweet and low?' suggested Anthea. + +'Too soft--I vote for "Who will o'er the downs". Now then--one, two, +three. + + 'Oh, who will o'er the downs so free, + Oh, who will with me ride, + Oh, who will up and follow me, + To win a blooming bride? + + Her father he has locked the door, + Her mother keeps the key; + But neither bolt nor bar shall keep + My own true love from me.' + +Jane, the alto, was missing, and Robert, unlike the mother of the lady +in the song, never could 'keep the key', but the song, even so, was +sufficiently unlike anything any of them had ever heard to rouse the +Babylonian Court to the wildest enthusiasm. + +'More, more,' cried the King; 'by my beard, this savage music is a new +thing. Sing again!' + +So they sang: + + 'I saw her bower at twilight gray, + 'Twas guarded safe and sure. + I saw her bower at break of day, + 'Twas guarded then no more. + + The varlets they were all asleep, + And there was none to see + The greeting fair that passed there + Between my love and me.' + +Shouts of applause greeted the ending of the verse, and the King would +not be satisfied till they had sung all their part-songs (they only knew +three) twice over, and ended up with 'Men of Harlech' in unison. Then +the King stood up in his royal robes with his high, narrow crown on his +head and shouted-- + +'By the beak of Nisroch, ask what you will, strangers from the land +where the sun never sets!' + +'We ought to say it's enough honour, like the dancer did,' whispered +Anthea. + +'No, let's ask for IT,' said Robert. + +'No, no, I'm sure the other's manners,' said Anthea. But Robert, who was +excited by the music, and the flaring torches, and the applause and the +opportunity, spoke up before the others could stop him. + +'Give us the half of the Amulet that has on it the name UR HEKAU +SETCHEH,' he said, adding as an afterthought, 'O King, live-for-ever.' + +As he spoke the great name those in the pillared hall fell on their +faces, and lay still. All but the Queen who crouched amid her cushions +with her head in her hands, and the King, who stood upright, perfectly +still, like the statue of a king in stone. It was only for a moment +though. Then his great voice thundered out-- + +'Guard, seize them!' + +Instantly, from nowhere as it seemed, sprang eight soldiers in bright +armour inlaid with gold, and tunics of red and white. Very splendid they +were, and very alarming. + +'Impious and sacrilegious wretches!' shouted the King. 'To the dungeons +with them! We will find a way, tomorrow, to make them speak. For without +doubt they can tell us where to find the lost half of It.' + +A wall of scarlet and white and steel and gold closed up round the +children and hurried them away among the many pillars of the great hall. +As they went they heard the voices of the courtiers loud in horror. + +'You've done it this time,' said Cyril with extreme bitterness. + +'Oh, it will come right. It MUST. It always does,' said Anthea +desperately. + +They could not see where they were going, because the guard surrounded +them so closely, but the ground under their feet, smooth marble at +first, grew rougher like stone, then it was loose earth and sand, and +they felt the night air. Then there was more stone, and steps down. + +'It's my belief we really ARE going to the deepest dungeon below the +castle moat this time,' said Cyril. + +And they were. At least it was not below a moat, but below the river +Euphrates, which was just as bad if not worse. In a most unpleasant +place it was. Dark, very, very damp, and with an odd, musty smell rather +like the shells of oysters. There was a torch--that is to say, a copper +basket on a high stick with oiled wood burning in it. By its light the +children saw that the walls were green, and that trickles of water ran +down them and dripped from the roof. There were things on the floor that +looked like newts, and in the dark corners creepy, shiny things moved +sluggishly, uneasily, horribly. + +Robert's heart sank right into those really reliable boots of +his. Anthea and Cyril each had a private struggle with that inside +disagreeableness which is part of all of us, and which is sometimes +called the Old Adam--and both were victors. Neither of them said to +Robert (and both tried hard not even to think it), 'This is YOUR doing.' +Anthea had the additional temptation to add, 'I told you so.' And she +resisted it successfully. + +'Sacrilege, and impious cheek,' said the captain of the guard to the +gaoler. 'To be kept during the King's pleasure. I expect he means to get +some pleasure out of them tomorrow! He'll tickle them up!' + +'Poor little kids,' said the gaoler. + +'Oh, yes,' said the captain. 'I've got kids of my own too. But it +doesn't do to let domestic sentiment interfere with one's public duties. +Good night.' + +The soldiers tramped heavily off in their white and red and steel and +gold. The gaoler, with a bunch of big keys in his hand, stood looking +pityingly at the children. He shook his head twice and went out. + +'Courage!' said Anthea. 'I know it will be all right. It's only a dream +REALLY, you know. It MUST be! I don't believe about time being only a +something or other of thought. It IS a dream, and we're bound to wake up +all right and safe.' + +'Humph,' said Cyril bitterly. And Robert suddenly said-- + +'It's all my doing. If it really IS all up do please not keep a down on +me about it, and tell Father--Oh, I forgot.' + +What he had forgotten was that his father was 3,000 miles and 5,000 or +more years away from him. + +'All right, Bobs, old man,' said Cyril; and Anthea got hold of Robert's +hand and squeezed it. + +Then the gaoler came back with a platter of hard, flat cakes made of +coarse grain, very different from the cream-and-juicy-date feasts of the +palace; also a pitcher of water. + +'There,' he said. + +'Oh, thank you so very much. You ARE kind,' said Anthea feverishly. + +'Go to sleep,' said the gaoler, pointing to a heap of straw in a corner; +'tomorrow comes soon enough.' + +'Oh, dear Mr Gaoler,' said Anthea, 'whatever will they do to us +tomorrow?' + +'They'll try to make you tell things,' said the gaoler grimly, 'and my +advice is if you've nothing to tell, make up something. Then perhaps +they'll sell you to the Northern nations. Regular savages THEY are. Good +night.' + +'Good night,' said three trembling voices, which their owners strove in +vain to render firm. Then he went out, and the three were left alone in +the damp, dim vault. + +'I know the light won't last long,' said Cyril, looking at the +flickering brazier. + +'Is it any good, do you think, calling on the name when we haven't got +the charm?' suggested Anthea. + +'I shouldn't think so. But we might try.' + +So they tried. But the blank silence of the damp dungeon remained +unchanged. + +'What was the name the Queen said?' asked Cyril suddenly. +'Nisbeth--Nesbit--something? You know, the slave of the great names?' + +'Wait a sec,' said Robert, 'though I don't know why you want it. +Nusroch--Nisrock--Nisroch--that's it.' + +Then Anthea pulled herself together. All her muscles tightened, and the +muscles of her mind and soul, if you can call them that, tightened too. + +'UR HEKAU SETCHEH,' she cried in a fervent voice. 'Oh, Nisroch, servant +of the Great Ones, come and help us!' + +There was a waiting silence. Then a cold, blue light awoke in the corner +where the straw was--and in the light they saw coming towards them a +strange and terrible figure. I won't try to describe it, because the +drawing shows it, exactly as it was, and exactly as the old Babylonians +carved it on their stones, so that you can see it in our own British +Museum at this day. I will just say that it had eagle's wings and an +eagle's head and the body of a man. + +It came towards them, strong and unspeakably horrible. + +'Oh, go away,' cried Anthea; but Cyril cried, 'No; stay!' + +The creature hesitated, then bowed low before them on the damp floor of +the dungeon. + +'Speak,' it said, in a harsh, grating voice like large rusty keys being +turned in locks. 'The servant of the Great Ones is YOUR servant. What is +your need that you call on the name of Nisroch?' + +'We want to go home,' said Robert. + +'No, no,' cried Anthea; 'we want to be where Jane is.' + +Nisroch raised his great arm and pointed at the wall of the dungeon. +And, as he pointed, the wall disappeared, and instead of the damp, +green, rocky surface, there shone and glowed a room with rich hangings +of red silk embroidered with golden water-lilies, with cushioned couches +and great mirrors of polished steel; and in it was the Queen, and +before her, on a red pillow, sat the Psammead, its fur hunched up in +an irritated, discontented way. On a blue-covered couch lay Jane fast +asleep. + +'Walk forward without fear,' said Nisroch. 'Is there aught else that the +Servant of the great Name can do for those who speak that name?' + +'No--oh, no,' said Cyril. 'It's all right now. Thanks ever so.' + +'You are a dear,' cried Anthea, not in the least knowing what she was +saying. 'Oh, thank you thank you. But DO go NOW!' + +She caught the hand of the creature, and it was cold and hard in hers, +like a hand of stone. + +'Go forward,' said Nisroch. And they went. + + +'Oh, my good gracious,' said the Queen as they stood before her. 'How +did you get here? I KNEW you were magic. I meant to let you out the +first thing in the morning, if I could slip away--but thanks be to +Dagon, you've managed it for yourselves. You must get away. I'll wake +my chief lady and she shall call Ritti-Marduk, and he'll let you out the +back way, and--' + +'Don't rouse anybody for goodness' sake,' said Anthea, 'except Jane, and +I'll rouse her.' + +She shook Jane with energy, and Jane slowly awoke. + +'Ritti-Marduk brought them in hours ago, really,' said the Queen, 'but +I wanted to have the Psammead all to myself for a bit. You'll excuse the +little natural deception?--it's part of the Babylonish character, don't +you know? But I don't want anything to happen to you. Do let me rouse +someone.' + +'No, no, no,' said Anthea with desperate earnestness. She thought she +knew enough of what the Babylonians were like when they were roused. +'We can go by our own magic. And you will tell the King it wasn't the +gaoler's fault. It was Nisroch.' + +'Nisroch!' echoed the Queen. 'You are indeed magicians.' + +Jane sat up, blinking stupidly. + +'Hold It up, and say the word,' cried Cyril, catching up the Psammead, +which mechanically bit him, but only very slightly. + +'Which is the East?' asked Jane. + +'Behind me,' said the Queen. 'Why?' + +'Ur Hekau Setcheh,' said Jane sleepily, and held up the charm. + +And there they all were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street. + +'Jane,' cried Cyril with great presence of mind, 'go and get the plate +of sand down for the Psammead.' + +Jane went. + +'Look here!' he said quickly, as the sound of her boots grew less loud +on the stairs, 'don't let's tell her about the dungeon and all that. +It'll only frighten her so that she'll never want to go anywhere else.' + +'Righto!' said Cyril; but Anthea felt that she could not have said a +word to save her life. + +'Why did you want to come back in such a hurry?' asked Jane, returning +with the plate of sand. 'It was awfully jolly in Babylon, I think! I +liked it no end.' + +'Oh, yes,' said Cyril carelessly. 'It was jolly enough, of course, but I +thought we'd been there long enough. Mother always says you oughtn't to +wear out your welcome!' + + + +CHAPTER 8. THE QUEEN IN LONDON + +'Now tell us what happened to you,' said Cyril to Jane, when he and the +others had told her all about the Queen's talk and the banquet, and the +variety entertainment, carefully stopping short before the beginning of +the dungeon part of the story. + +'It wasn't much good going,' said Jane, 'if you didn't even try to get +the Amulet.' + +'We found out it was no go,' said Cyril; 'it's not to be got in Babylon. +It was lost before that. We'll go to some other jolly friendly place, +where everyone is kind and pleasant, and look for it there. Now tell us +about your part.' + +'Oh,' said Jane, 'the Queen's man with the smooth face--what was his +name?' + +'Ritti-Marduk,' said Cyril. + +'Yes,' said Jane, 'Ritti-Marduk, he came for me just after the Psammead +had bitten the guard-of-the-gate's wife's little boy, and he took me to +the Palace. And we had supper with the new little Queen from Egypt. She +is a dear--not much older than you. She told me heaps about Egypt. And +we played ball after supper. And then the Babylon Queen sent for me. I +like her too. And she talked to the Psammead and I went to sleep. And +then you woke me up. That's all.' + +The Psammead, roused from its sound sleep, told the same story. + +'But,' it added, 'what possessed you to tell that Queen that I could +give wishes? I sometimes think you were born without even the most +rudimentary imitation of brains.' + +The children did not know the meaning of rudimentary, but it sounded a +rude, insulting word. + +'I don't see that we did any harm,' said Cyril sulkily. + +'Oh, no,' said the Psammead with withering irony, 'not at all! Of course +not! Quite the contrary! Exactly so! Only she happened to wish that she +might soon find herself in your country. And soon may mean any moment.' + +'Then it's your fault,' said Robert, 'because you might just as well +have made "soon" mean some moment next year or next century.' + +'That's where you, as so often happens, make the mistake,' rejoined the +Sand-fairy. '_I_ couldn't mean anything but what SHE meant by "soon". It +wasn't my wish. And what SHE meant was the next time the King happens to +go out lion hunting. So she'll have a whole day, and perhaps two, to +do as she wishes with. SHE doesn't know about time only being a mode of +thought.' + +'Well,' said Cyril, with a sigh of resignation, 'we must do what we can +to give her a good time. She was jolly decent to us. I say, suppose we +were to go to St James's Park after dinner and feed those ducks that we +never did feed. After all that Babylon and all those years ago, I +feel as if I should like to see something REAL, and NOW. You'll come, +Psammead?' + +'Where's my priceless woven basket of sacred rushes?' asked the Psammead +morosely. 'I can't go out with nothing on. And I won't, what's more.' + +And then everybody remembered with pain that the bass bag had, in the +hurry of departure from Babylon, not been remembered. + +'But it's not so extra precious,' said Robert hastily. 'You can get them +given to you for nothing if you buy fish in Farringdon Market.' + +'Oh,' said the Psammead very crossly indeed, 'so you presume on my +sublime indifference to the things of this disgusting modern world, to +fob me off with a travelling equipage that costs you nothing. Very well, +I shall go to sand. Please don't wake me.' + +And it went then and there to sand, which, as you know, meant to bed. +The boys went to St James's Park to feed the ducks, but they went alone. + +Anthea and Jane sat sewing all the afternoon. They cut off half a yard +from each of their best green Liberty sashes. A towel cut in two formed +a lining; and they sat and sewed and sewed and sewed. What they were +making was a bag for the Psammead. Each worked at a half of the bag. +jane's half had four-leaved shamrocks embroidered on it. They were the +only things she could do (because she had been taught how at school, +and, fortunately, some of the silk she had been taught with was left +over). And even so, Anthea had to draw the pattern for her. Anthea's +side of the bag had letters on it--worked hastily but affectionately in +chain stitch. They were something like this: + +PSAMS TRAVEL CAR + +She would have put 'travelling carriage', but she made the letters too +big, so there was no room. The bag was made INTO a bag with old Nurse's +sewing machine, and the strings of it were Anthea's and Jane's best +red hair ribbons. At tea-time, when the boys had come home with a most +unfavourable report of the St james's Park ducks, Anthea ventured to +awaken the Psammead, and to show it its new travelling bag. + +'Humph,' it said, sniffing a little contemptuously, yet at the same time +affectionately, 'it's not so dusty.' + +The Psammead seemed to pick up very easily the kind of things that +people said nowadays. For a creature that had in its time associated +with Megatheriums and Pterodactyls, its quickness was really wonderful. + +'It's more worthy of me,' it said, 'than the kind of bag that's given +away with a pound of plaice. When do you propose to take me out in it?' + +'I should like a rest from taking you or us anywhere,' said Cyril. But +Jane said-- + +'I want to go to Egypt. I did like that Egyptian Princess that came +to marry the King in Babylon. She told me about the larks they have in +Egypt. And the cats. Do let's go there. And I told her what the bird +things on the Amulet were like. And she said it was Egyptian writing.' + +The others exchanged looks of silent rejoicing at the thought of their +cleverness in having concealed from Jane the terrors they had suffered +in the dungeon below the Euphrates. + +'Egypt's so nice too,' Jane went on, 'because of Doctor Brewer's +Scripture History. I would like to go there when Joseph was dreaming +those curious dreams, or when Moses was doing wonderful things with +snakes and sticks.' + +'I don't care about snakes,' said Anthea shuddering. + +'Well, we needn't be in at that part, but Babylon was lovely! We had +cream and sweet, sticky stuff. And I expect Egypt's the same.' + +There was a good deal of discussion, but it all ended in everybody's +agreeing to Jane's idea. And next morning directly after breakfast +(which was kippers and very nice) the Psammead was invited to get into +his travelling carriage. + +The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, like that +of a cat when you want to nurse it, and its ideas are not the same as +yours, old Nurse came in. + +'Well, chickies,' she said, 'are you feeling very dull?' + +'Oh, no, Nurse dear,' said Anthea; 'we're having a lovely time. We're +just going off to see some old ancient relics.' + +'Ah,' said old Nurse, 'the Royal Academy, I suppose? Don't go wasting +your money too reckless, that's all.' + +She cleared away the kipper bones and the tea-things, and when she had +swept up the crumbs and removed the cloth, the Amulet was held up and +the order given--just as Duchesses (and other people) give it to their +coachmen. + +'To Egypt, please!' said Anthea, when Cyril had uttered the wonderful +Name of Power. + +'When Moses was there,' added Jane. + +And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street dining-room, the Amulet grew +big, and it was an arch, and through it they saw a blue, blue sky and a +running river. + +'No, stop!' said Cyril, and pulled down jane's hand with the Amulet in +it. + +'What silly cuckoos we all are,' he said. 'Of course we can't go. We +daren't leave home for a single minute now, for fear that minute should +be THE minute.' + +'What minute be WHAT minute?' asked Jane impatiently, trying to get her +hand away from Cyril. + +'The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,' said Cyril. And then +everyone saw it. + + +For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful stream. + +The children could never go out all at once, because they never knew +when the King of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave his Queen +free to pay them that surprise visit to which she was, without doubt, +eagerly looking forward. + +So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in. + +The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but for the +new interest taken in them by the learned gentleman. + +He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of purple +and gold beads. + +'I saw one like that,' she said, 'in--' + +'In the British Museum, perhaps?' + +'I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,' said Anthea +cautiously. + +'A pretty fancy,' said the learned gentleman, 'and quite correct too, +because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from Babylon.' The +other three were all out that day. The boys had been going to the Zoo, +and Jane had said so plaintively, 'I'm sure I am fonder of rhinoceroses +than either of you are,' that Anthea had told her to run along then. +And she had run, catching the boys before that part of the road where +Fitzroy Street suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square. + +'I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,' said Anthea. 'I do +have such interesting dreams about it--at least, not dreams exactly, but +quite as wonderful.' + +'Do sit down and tell me,' said he. So she sat down and told. And he +asked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as well as she +could. + +'Wonderful--wonderful!' he said at last. 'One's heard of +thought-transference, but I never thought _I_ had any power of that +sort. Yet it must be that, and very bad for YOU, I should think. Doesn't +your head ache very much?' + +He suddenly put a cold, thin hand on her forehead. + +'No thank you, not at all,' said she. + +'I assure you it is not done intentionally,' he went on. 'Of course I +know a good deal about Babylon, and I unconsciously communicate it to +you; you've heard of thought-reading, but some of the things you say, +I don't understand; they never enter my head, and yet they're so +astoundingly probable.' + +'It's all right,' said Anthea reassuringly. '_I_ understand. And don't +worry. It's all quite simple really.' + +It was not quite so simple when Anthea, having heard the others come +in, went down, and before she had had time to ask how they had liked the +Zoo, heard a noise outside, compared to which the wild beasts' noises +were gentle as singing birds. + +'Good gracious!' cried Anthea, 'what's that?' + +The loud hum of many voices came through the open window. Words could be +distinguished. + +''Ere's a guy!' + +'This ain't November. That ain't no guy. It's a ballet lady, that's what +it is.' + +'Not it--it's a bloomin' looney, I tell you.' + +Then came a clear voice that they knew. + +'Retire, slaves!' it said. + +'What's she a saying of?' cried a dozen voices. 'Some blamed foreign +lingo,' one voice replied. + +The children rushed to the door. A crowd was on the road and pavement. + +In the middle of the crowd, plainly to be seen from the top of the +steps, were the beautiful face and bright veil of the Babylonian Queen. + +'Jimminy!' cried Robert, and ran down the steps, 'here she is!' + +'Here!' he cried, 'look out--let the lady pass. She's a friend of ours, +coming to see us.' + +'Nice friend for a respectable house,' snorted a fat woman with marrows +on a handcart. + +All the same the crowd made way a little. The Queen met Robert on the +pavement, and Cyril joined them, the Psammead bag still on his arm. + +'Here,' he whispered; 'here's the Psammead; you can get wishes.' + +'_I_ wish you'd come in a different dress, if you HAD to come,' said +Robert; 'but it's no use my wishing anything.' + +'No,' said the Queen. 'I wish I was dressed--no, I don't--I wish THEY +were dressed properly, then they wouldn't be so silly.' + +The Psammead blew itself out till the bag was a very tight fit for it; +and suddenly every man, woman, and child in that crowd felt that it had +not enough clothes on. For, of course, the Queen's idea of proper dress +was the dress that had been proper for the working-classes 3,000 years +ago in Babylon--and there was not much of it. + +'Lawky me!' said the marrow-selling woman, 'whatever could a-took me +to come out this figure?' and she wheeled her cart away very quickly +indeed. + +'Someone's made a pretty guy of you--talk of guys,' said a man who sold +bootlaces. + +'Well, don't you talk,' said the man next to him. 'Look at your own +silly legs; and where's your boots?' + +'I never come out like this, I'll take my sacred,' said the +bootlace-seller. 'I wasn't quite myself last night, I'll own, but not to +dress up like a circus.' + +The crowd was all talking at once, and getting rather angry. But no one +seemed to think of blaming the Queen. + +Anthea bounded down the steps and pulled her up; the others followed, +and the door was shut. 'Blowed if I can make it out!' they heard. 'I'm +off home, I am.' + +And the crowd, coming slowly to the same mind, dispersed, followed by +another crowd of persons who were not dressed in what the Queen thought +was the proper way. + +'We shall have the police here directly,' said Anthea in the tones of +despair. 'Oh, why did you come dressed like that?' + +The Queen leaned against the arm of the horse-hair sofa. + +'How else can a queen dress I should like to know?' she questioned. + +'Our Queen wears things like other people,' said Cyril. + +'Well, I don't. And I must say,' she remarked in an injured tone, 'that +you don't seem very glad to see me now I HAVE come. But perhaps it's the +surprise that makes you behave like this. Yet you ought to be used to +surprises. The way you vanished! I shall never forget it. The best magic +I've ever seen. How did you do it?' + +'Oh, never mind about that now,' said Robert. 'You see you've gone and +upset all those people, and I expect they'll fetch the police. And we +don't want to see you collared and put in prison.' + +'You can't put queens in prison,' she said loftily. 'Oh, can't you?' +said Cyril. 'We cut off a king's head here once.' + +'In this miserable room? How frightfully interesting.' + +'No, no, not in this room; in history.' + +'Oh, in THAT,' said the Queen disparagingly. 'I thought you'd done it +with your own hands.' + +The girls shuddered. + +'What a hideous city yours is,' the Queen went on pleasantly, 'and what +horrid, ignorant people. Do you know they actually can't understand a +single word I say.' + +'Can you understand them?' asked Jane. + +'Of course not; they speak some vulgar, Northern dialect. I can +understand YOU quite well.' + +I really am not going to explain AGAIN how it was that the children +could understand other languages than their own so thoroughly, and talk +them, too, so that it felt and sounded (to them) just as though they +were talking English. + +'Well,' said Cyril bluntly, 'now you've seen just how horrid it is, +don't you think you might as well go home again?' 'Why, I've seen simply +nothing yet,' said the Queen, arranging her starry veil. 'I wished to be +at your door, and I was. Now I must go and see your King and Queen.' + +'Nobody's allowed to,' said Anthea in haste; 'but look here, we'll take +you and show you anything you'd like to see--anything you CAN see,' she +added kindly, because she remembered how nice the Queen had been to them +in Babylon, even if she had been a little deceitful in the matter of +Jane and Psammead. + +'There's the Museum,' said Cyril hopefully; 'there are lots of things +from your country there. If only we could disguise you a little.' + +'I know,' said Anthea suddenly. 'Mother's old theatre cloak, and there +are a lot of her old hats in the big box.' + +The blue silk, lace-trimmed cloak did indeed hide some of the Queen's +startling splendours, but the hat fitted very badly. It had pink roses +in it; and there was something about the coat or the hat or the Queen, +that made her look somehow not very respectable. + +'Oh, never mind,' said Anthea, when Cyril whispered this. 'The thing is +to get her out before Nurse has finished her forty winks. I should think +she's about got to the thirty-ninth wink by now.' + +'Come on then,' said Robert. 'You know how dangerous it is. Let's make +haste into the Museum. If any of those people you made guys of do fetch +the police, they won't think of looking for you there.' + +The blue silk coat and the pink-rosed hat attracted almost as much +attention as the royal costume had done; and the children were +uncommonly glad to get out of the noisy streets into the grey quiet of +the Museum. + +'Parcels and umbrellas to be left here,' said a man at the counter. + +The party had no umbrellas, and the only parcel was the bag containing +the Psammead, which the Queen had insisted should be brought. + +'I'M not going to be left,' said the Psammead softly, 'so don't you +think it.' + +'I'll wait outside with you,' said Anthea hastily, and went to sit on +the seat near the drinking fountain. + +'Don't sit so near that nasty fountain,' said the creature crossly; 'I +might get splashed.' + +Anthea obediently moved to another seat and waited. Indeed she waited, +and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. The Psammead dropped +into an uneasy slumber. Anthea had long ceased to watch the swing-door +that always let out the wrong person, and she was herself almost asleep, +and still the others did not come back. + +It was quite a start when Anthea suddenly realized that they HAD come +back, and that they were not alone. Behind them was quite a crowd of +men in uniform, and several gentlemen were there. Everyone seemed very +angry. + +'Now go,' said the nicest of the angry gentlemen. 'Take the poor, +demented thing home and tell your parents she ought to be properly +looked after.' + +'If you can't get her to go we must send for the police,' said the +nastiest gentleman. + +'But we don't wish to use harsh measures,' added the nice one, who was +really very nice indeed, and seemed to be over all the others. + +'May I speak to my sister a moment first?' asked Robert. + +The nicest gentleman nodded, and the officials stood round the Queen, +the others forming a sort of guard while Robert crossed over to Anthea. + +'Everything you can think of,' he replied to Anthea's glance of inquiry. +'Kicked up the most frightful shine in there. Said those necklaces and +earrings and things in the glass cases were all hers--would have them +out of the cases. Tried to break the glass--she did break one bit! +Everybody in the place has been at her. No good. I only got her out by +telling her that was the place where they cut queens' heads off.' + +'Oh, Bobs, what a whacker!' + +'You'd have told a whackinger one to get her out. Besides, it wasn't. I +meant MUMMY queens. How do you know they don't cut off mummies' heads to +see how the embalming is done? What I want to say is, can't you get her +to go with you quietly?' + +'I'll try,' said Anthea, and went up to the Queen. + +'Do come home,' she said; 'the learned gentleman in our house has a much +nicer necklace than anything they've got here. Come and see it.' + +The Queen nodded. + +'You see,' said the nastiest gentleman, 'she does understand English.' + +'I was talking Babylonian, I think,' said Anthea bashfully. + +'My good child,' said the nice gentleman, 'what you're talking is +not Babylonian, but nonsense. You just go home at once, and tell your +parents exactly what has happened.' + +Anthea took the Queen's hand and gently pulled her away. The other +children followed, and the black crowd of angry gentlemen stood on the +steps watching them. It was when the little party of disgraced children, +with the Queen who had disgraced them, had reached the middle of the +courtyard that her eyes fell on the bag where the Psammead was. She +stopped short. + +'I wish,' she said, very loud and clear, 'that all those Babylonian +things would come out to me here--slowly, so that those dogs and slaves +can see the working of the great Queen's magic.' + +'Oh, you ARE a tiresome woman,' said the Psammead in its bag, but it +puffed itself out. + +Next moment there was a crash. The glass swing doors and all their +framework were smashed suddenly and completely. The crowd of angry +gentlemen sprang aside when they saw what had done this. + +But the nastiest of them was not quick enough, and he was roughly pushed +out of the way by an enormous stone bull that was floating steadily +through the door. It came and stood beside the Queen in the middle of +the courtyard. + +It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved stone, +bricks, helmets, tools, weapons, fetters, wine-jars, bowls, bottles, +vases, jugs, saucers, seals, and the round long things, something like +rolling pins with marks on them like the print of little bird-feet, +necklaces, collars, rings, armlets, earrings--heaps and heaps and +heaps of things, far more than anyone had time to count, or even to see +distinctly. + +All the angry gentlemen had abruptly sat down on the Museum steps except +the nice one. He stood with his hands in his pockets just as though +he was quite used to seeing great stone bulls and all sorts of small +Babylonish objects float out into the Museum yard. + +But he sent a man to close the big iron gates. + +A journalist, who was just leaving the museum, spoke to Robert as he +passed. + +'Theosophy, I suppose?' he said. 'Is she Mrs Besant?' + +'YES,' said Robert recklessly. + +The journalist passed through the gates just before they were shut. + +He rushed off to Fleet Street, and his paper got out a new edition +within half an hour. + + MRS BESANT AND THEOSOPHY + + IMPERTINENT MIRACLE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM. + +People saw it in fat, black letters on the boards carried by the sellers +of newspapers. Some few people who had nothing better to do went down +to the Museum on the tops of omnibuses. But by the time they got there +there was nothing to be seen. For the Babylonian Queen had suddenly seen +the closed gates, had felt the threat of them, and had said-- + +'I wish we were in your house.' + +And, of course, instantly they were. + +The Psammead was furious. + +'Look here,' it said, 'they'll come after you, and they'll find ME. +There'll be a National Cage built for me at Westminster, and I shall +have to work at politics. Why wouldn't you leave the things in their +places?' + +'What a temper you have, haven't you?' said the Queen serenely. 'I wish +all the things were back in their places. Will THAT do for you?' + +The Psammead swelled and shrank and spoke very angrily. + +'I can't refuse to give your wishes,' it said, 'but I can Bite. And I +will if this goes on. Now then.' + +'Ah, don't,' whispered Anthea close to its bristling ear; 'it's dreadful +for us too. Don't YOU desert us. Perhaps she'll wish herself at home +again soon.' + +'Not she,' said the Psammead a little less crossly. + +'Take me to see your City,' said the Queen. + +The children looked at each other. + +'If we had some money we could take her about in a cab. People wouldn't +notice her so much then. But we haven't.' + +'Sell this,' said the Queen, taking a ring from her finger. + +'They'd only think we'd stolen it,' said Cyril bitterly, 'and put us in +prison.' + +'All roads lead to prison with you, it seems,' said the Queen. + +'The learned gentleman!' said Anthea, and ran up to him with the ring in +her hand. + +'Look here,' she said, 'will you buy this for a pound?' + +'Oh!' he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring into his +hand. 'It's my very own,' said Anthea; 'it was given to me to sell.' + +'I'll lend you a pound,' said the learned gentleman, 'with pleasure; and +I'll take care of the ring for you. Who did you say gave it to you?' + +'We call her,' said Anthea carefully, 'the Queen of Babylon.' + +'Is it a game?' he asked hopefully. + +'It'll be a pretty game if I don't get the money to pay for cabs for +her,' said Anthea. + +'I sometimes think,' he said slowly, 'that I am becoming insane, or +that--' + +'Or that I am; but I'm not, and you're not, and she's not.' + +'Does she SAY that she's the Queen of Babylon?' he uneasily asked. + +'Yes,' said Anthea recklessly. + +'This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,' he +said. 'I suppose I have unconsciously influenced HER, too. I never +thought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. Horrible! +There are more things in heaven and earth--' + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'heaps more. And the pound is the thing _I_ want +more than anything on earth.' + +He ran his fingers through his thin hair. + +'This thought-transference!' he said. 'It's undoubtedly a Babylonian +ring--or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have hypnotized myself. I will +see a doctor the moment I have corrected the last proofs of my book.' + +'Yes, do!' said Anthea, 'and thank you so very much.' + +She took the sovereign and ran down to the others. + +And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylon +beheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thought +uninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament little +better. But she liked the Tower, and the River, and the ships filled her +with wonder and delight. + +'But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and neglected +they seem,' she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End Road. + +'They aren't slaves; they're working-people,' said Jane. + +'Of course they're working. That's what slaves are. Don't you tell me. +Do you suppose I don't know a slave's face when I see it? + +Why don't their masters see that they're better fed and better clothed? +Tell me in three words.' + +No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficult +to explain in three words even if you understand it--which the children +didn't. + +'You'll have a revolt of your slaves if you're not careful,' said the +Queen. + +'Oh, no,' said Cyril; 'you see they have votes--that makes them safe not +to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so.' + +'What is this vote?' asked the Queen. 'Is it a charm? What do they do +with it?' + +'I don't know,' said the harassed Cyril; 'it's just a vote, that's all! +They don't do anything particular with it.' + +'I see,' said the Queen; 'a sort of plaything. Well, I wish that all +these slaves may have in their hands this moment their fill of their +favourite meat and drink.' + +Instantly all the people in the Mile End Road, and in all the other +streets where poor people live, found their hands full of things to eat +and drink. From the cab window could be seen persons carrying every kind +of food, and bottles and cans as well. Roast meat, fowls, red lobsters, +great yellowy crabs, fried fish, boiled pork, beef-steak puddings, baked +onions, mutton pies; most of the young people had oranges and sweets +and cake. It made an enormous change in the look of the Mile End +Road--brightened it up, so to speak, and brightened up, more than you +can possibly imagine, the faces of the people. + +'Makes a difference, doesn't it?' said the Queen. + +'That's the best wish you've had yet,' said Jane with cordial approval. + +just by the Bank the cabman stopped. + +'I ain't agoin' to drive you no further,' he said. 'Out you gets.' + +They got out rather unwillingly. + +'I wants my tea,' he said; and they saw that on the box of the cab was a +mound of cabbage, with pork chops and apple sauce, a duck, and a spotted +currant pudding. Also a large can. + +'You pay me my fare,' he said threateningly, and looked down at the +mound, muttering again about his tea. + +'We'll take another cab,' said Cyril with dignity. 'Give me change for a +sovereign, if you please.' + +But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice character. He +took the sovereign, whipped up his horse, and disappeared in the stream +of cabs and omnibuses and wagons, without giving them any change at all. + +Already a little crowd was collecting round the party. + +'Come on,' said Robert, leading the wrong way. + +The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where many +gentlemen in black coats and without hats were standing about on the +pavement talking very loudly. + +'How ugly their clothes are,' said the Queen of Babylon. 'They'd be +rather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed decently, especially +the ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I wish they were dressed +like the Babylonians of my court.' + +And of course, it was so. + +The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every man +in Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian full dress. + +All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented and +curled, their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings and armlets, +flat gold collars and swords, and impossible-looking head-dresses. + +A stupefied silence fell on them. + +'I say,' a youth who had always been fair-haired broke that silence, +'it's only fancy of course--something wrong with my eyes--but you chaps +do look so rum.' + +'Rum,' said his friend. 'Look at YOU. You in a sash! My hat! And your +hair's gone black and you've got a beard. It's my belief we've been +poisoned. You do look a jackape.' + +'Old Levinstein don't look so bad. But how was it DONE--that's what I +want to know. How was it done? Is it conjuring, or what?' + +'I think it is chust a ver' bad tream,' said old Levinstein to his +clerk; 'all along Bishopsgate I haf seen the gommon people have their +hants full of food--GOOT food. Oh yes, without doubt a very bad tream!' + +'Then I'm dreaming too, Sir,' said the clerk, looking down at his legs +with an expression of loathing. 'I see my feet in beastly sandals as +plain as plain.' + +'All that goot food wasted,' said old Mr Levinstein. A bad tream--a bad +tream.' + +The Members of the Stock Exchange are said to be at all times a noisy +lot. But the noise they made now to express their disgust at the +costumes of ancient Babylon was far louder than their ordinary row. One +had to shout before one could hear oneself speak. + +'I only wish,' said the clerk who thought it was conjuring--he was quite +close to the children and they trembled, because they knew that whatever +he wished would come true. 'I only wish we knew who'd done it.' + +And, of course, instantly they did know, and they pressed round the +Queen. + +'Scandalous! Shameful! Ought to be put down by law. Give her in charge. +Fetch the police,' two or three voices shouted at once. + +The Queen recoiled. + +'What is it?' she asked. 'They sound like caged lions--lions by the +thousand. What is it that they say?' + +'They say "Police!",' said Cyril briefly. 'I knew they would sooner or +later. And I don't blame them, mind you.' + +'I wish my guards were here!' cried the Queen. The exhausted Psammead +was panting and trembling, but the Queen's guards in red and green +garments, and brass and iron gear, choked Throgmorton Street, and bared +weapons flashed round the Queen. + +'I'm mad,' said a Mr Rosenbaum; 'dat's what it is--mad!' + +'It's a judgement on you, Rosy,' said his partner. 'I always said you +were too hard in that matter of Flowerdew. It's a judgement, and I'm in +it too.' + +The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from the +gleaming blades, the mailed figures, the hard, cruel Eastern faces. + +But Throgmorton Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for them +to get away as quickly as they wished. + +'Kill them,' cried the Queen. 'Kill the dogs!' + +The guards obeyed. + +'It IS all a dream,' cried Mr Levinstein, cowering in a doorway behind +his clerk. + +'It isn't,' said the clerk. 'It isn't. Oh, my good gracious! those +foreign brutes are killing everybody. Henry Hirsh is down now, and +Prentice is cut in two--oh, Lord! and Huth, and there goes Lionel Cohen +with his head off, and Guy Nickalls has lost his head now. A dream? I +wish to goodness it was all a dream.' + +And, of course, instantly it was! The entire Stock Exchange rubbed its +eyes and went back to close, to over, and either side of seven-eights, +and Trunks, and Kaffirs, and Steel Common, and Contangoes, and +Backwardations, Double Options, and all the interesting subjects +concerning which they talk in the Street without ceasing. + +No one said a word about it to anyone else. I think I have explained +before that business men do not like it to be known that they have +been dreaming in business hours. Especially mad dreams including such +dreadful things as hungry people getting dinners, and the destruction of +the Stock Exchange. + + +The children were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street, pale and +trembling. The Psammead crawled out of the embroidered bag, and lay flat +on the table, its leg stretched out, looking more like a dead hare than +anything else. + +'Thank Goodness that's over,' said Anthea, drawing a deep breath. + +'She won't come back, will she?' asked Jane tremulously. + +'No,' said Cyril. 'She's thousands of years ago. But we spent a whole +precious pound on her. It'll take all our pocket-money for ages to pay +that back.' + +'Not if it was ALL a dream,' said Robert. + +'The wish said ALL a dream, you know, Panther; you cut up and ask if he +lent you anything.' + +'I beg your pardon,' said Anthea politely, following the sound of her +knock into the presence of the learned gentleman, 'I'm so sorry to +trouble you, but DID you lend me a pound today?' + +'No,' said he, looking kindly at her through his spectacles. 'But it's +extraordinary that you should ask me, for I dozed for a few moments this +afternoon, a thing I very rarely do, and I dreamed quite distinctly that +you brought me a ring that you said belonged to the Queen of Babylon, +and that I lent you a sovereign and that you left one of the Queen's +rings here. The ring was a magnificent specimen.' He sighed. 'I wish it +hadn't been a dream,' he said smiling. He was really learning to smile +quite nicely. + +Anthea could not be too thankful that the Psammead was not there to +grant his wish. + + + +CHAPTER 9. ATLANTIS + +You will understand that the adventure of the Babylonian queen in London +was the only one that had occupied any time at all. But the children's +time was very fully taken up by talking over all the wonderful things +seen and done in the Past, where, by the power of the Amulet, they +seemed to spend hours and hours, only to find when they got back to +London that the whole thing had been briefer than a lightning flash. + +They talked of the Past at their meals, in their walks, in the +dining-room, in the first-floor drawing-room, but most of all on the +stairs. It was an old house; it had once been a fashionable one, and was +a fine one still. The banister rails of the stairs were excellent for +sliding down, and in the corners of the landings were big alcoves that +had once held graceful statues, and now quite often held the graceful +forms of Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane. + +One day Cyril and Robert in tight white underclothing had spent a +pleasant hour in reproducing the attitudes of statues seen either in the +British Museum, or in Father's big photograph book. But the show ended +abruptly because Robert wanted to be the Venus of Milo, and for this +purpose pulled at the sheet which served for drapery at the very moment +when Cyril, looking really quite like the Discobolos--with a gold and +white saucer for the disc--was standing on one foot, and under that one +foot was the sheet. + +Of course the Discobolos and his disc and the would-be Venus came down +together, and everyone was a good deal hurt, especially the saucer, +which would never be the same again, however neatly one might join its +uneven bits with Seccotine or the white of an egg. + +'I hope you're satisfied,' said Cyril, holding his head where a large +lump was rising. + +'Quite, thanks,' said Robert bitterly. His thumb had caught in the +banisters and bent itself back almost to breaking point. + +'I AM so sorry, poor, dear Squirrel,' said Anthea; 'and you were looking +so lovely. I'll get a wet rag. Bobs, go and hold your hand under the +hot-water tap. It's what ballet girls do with their legs when they hurt +them. I saw it in a book.' + +'What book?' said Robert disagreeably. But he went. + +When he came back Cyril's head had been bandaged by his sisters, and he +had been brought to the state of mind where he was able reluctantly to +admit that he supposed Robert hadn't done it on purpose. + +Robert replying with equal suavity, Anthea hastened to lead the talk +away from the accident. + +'I suppose you don't feel like going anywhere through the Amulet,' she +said. + +'Egypt!' said Jane promptly. 'I want to see the pussy cats.' + +'Not me--too hot,' said Cyril. 'It's about as much as I can stand +here--let alone Egypt.' It was indeed, hot, even on the second landing, +which was the coolest place in the house. 'Let's go to the North Pole.' + +'I don't suppose the Amulet was ever there--and we might get our fingers +frost-bitten so that we could never hold it up to get home again. No +thanks,' said Robert. + +'I say,' said Jane, 'let's get the Psammead and ask its advice. It will +like us asking, even if we don't take it.' + +The Psammead was brought up in its green silk embroidered bag, but +before it could be asked anything the door of the learned gentleman's +room opened and the voice of the visitor who had been lunching with him +was heard on the stairs. He seemed to be speaking with the door handle +in his hand. + +'You see a doctor, old boy,' he said; 'all that about +thought-transference is just simply twaddle. You've been over-working. +Take a holiday. Go to Dieppe.' + +'I'd rather go to Babylon,' said the learned gentleman. + +'I wish you'd go to Atlantis some time, while we're about it, so as to +give me some tips for my Nineteenth Century article when you come home.' + +'I wish I could,' said the voice of the learned gentleman. 'Goodbye. +Take care of yourself.' + +The door was banged, and the visitor came smiling down the stairs--a +stout, prosperous, big man. The children had to get up to let him pass. + +'Hullo, Kiddies,' he said, glancing at the bandages on the head of Cyril +and the hand of Robert, 'been in the wars?' + +'It's all right,' said Cyril. 'I say, what was that Atlantic place you +wanted him to go to? We couldn't help hearing you talk.' + +'You talk so VERY loud, you see,' said Jane soothingly. + +'Atlantis,' said the visitor, 'the lost Atlantis, garden of the +Hesperides. Great continent--disappeared in the sea. You can read about +it in Plato.' + +'Thank you,' said Cyril doubtfully. + +'Were there any Amulets there?' asked Anthea, made anxious by a sudden +thought. + +'Hundreds, I should think. So HE'S been talking to you?' + +'Yes, often. He's very kind to us. We like him awfully.' + +'Well, what he wants is a holiday; you persuade him to take one. What +he wants is a change of scene. You see, his head is crusted so thickly +inside with knowledge about Egypt and Assyria and things that you can't +hammer anything into it unless you keep hard at it all day long for days +and days. And I haven't time. But you live in the house. You can hammer +almost incessantly. Just try your hands, will you? Right. So long!' + +He went down the stairs three at a time, and Jane remarked that he was a +nice man, and she thought he had little girls of his own. + +'I should like to have them to play with,' she added pensively. + +The three elder ones exchanged glances. Cyril nodded. + +'All right. LET'S go to Atlantis,' he said. + +'Let's go to Atlantis and take the learned gentleman with us,' said +Anthea; 'he'll think it's a dream, afterwards, but it'll certainly be a +change of scene.' + +'Why not take him to nice Egypt?' asked Jane. + +'Too hot,' said Cyril shortly. + +'Or Babylon, where he wants to go?' + +'I've had enough of Babylon,' said Robert, 'at least for the present. +And so have the others. I don't know why,' he added, forestalling the +question on Jane's lips, 'but somehow we have. Squirrel, let's take +off these beastly bandages and get into flannels. We can't go in our +unders.' + +'He WISHED to go to Atlantis, so he's got to go some time; and he might +as well go with us,' said Anthea. + +This was how it was that the learned gentleman, permitting himself a few +moments of relaxation in his chair, after the fatigue of listening to +opinions (about Atlantis and many other things) with which he did not +at all agree, opened his eyes to find his four young friends standing in +front of him in a row. + +'Will you come,' said Anthea, 'to Atlantis with us?' + +'To know that you are dreaming shows that the dream is nearly at an +end,' he told himself; 'or perhaps it's only a game, like "How many +miles to Babylon?".' So he said aloud: 'Thank you very much, but I have +only a quarter of an hour to spare.' + +'It doesn't take any time,' said Cyril; 'time is only a mode of thought, +you know, and you've got to go some time, so why not with us?' + +'Very well,' said the learned gentleman, now quite certain that he was +dreaming. + +Anthea held out her soft, pink hand. He took it. She pulled him gently +to his feet. Jane held up the Amulet. + +'To just outside Atlantis,' said Cyril, and Jane said the Name of Power. + +'You owl!' said Robert, 'it's an island. Outside an island's all water.' + +'I won't go. I WON'T,' said the Psammead, kicking and struggling in its +bag. + +But already the Amulet had grown to a great arch. Cyril pushed the +learned gentleman, as undoubtedly the first-born, through the arch--not +into water, but on to a wooden floor, out of doors. The others followed. +The Amulet grew smaller again, and there they all were, standing on the +deck of a ship whose sailors were busy making her fast with chains to +rings on a white quay-side. The rings and the chains were of a metal +that shone red-yellow like gold. + +Everyone on the ship seemed too busy at first to notice the group of +newcomers from Fitzroy Street. Those who seemed to be officers were +shouting orders to the men. + +They stood and looked across the wide quay to the town that rose beyond +it. What they saw was the most beautiful sight any of them had ever +seen--or ever dreamed of. + +The blue sea sparkled in soft sunlight; little white-capped waves broke +softly against the marble breakwaters that guarded the shipping of a +great city from the wilderness of winter winds and seas. The quay was of +marble, white and sparkling with a veining bright as gold. The city +was of marble, red and white. The greater buildings that seemed to be +temples and palaces were roofed with what looked like gold and silver, +but most of the roofs were of copper that glowed golden-red on the +houses on the hills among which the city stood, and shaded into +marvellous tints of green and blue and purple where they had been +touched by the salt sea spray and the fumes of the dyeing and smelting +works of the lower town. + +Broad and magnificent flights of marble stairs led up from the quay to a +sort of terrace that seemed to run along for miles, and beyond rose the +town built on a hill. + +The learned gentleman drew a long breath. 'Wonderful!' he said, +'wonderful!' + +'I say, Mr--what's your name,' said Robert. 'He means,' said Anthea, +with gentle politeness, 'that we never can remember your name. I know +it's Mr De Something.' + +'When I was your age I was called Jimmy,' he said timidly. 'Would you +mind? I should feel more at home in a dream like this if I--Anything +that made me seem more like one of you.' + +'Thank you--Jimmy,' said Anthea with an effort. It seemed such a cheek +to be saying Jimmy to a grown-up man. 'Jimmy, DEAR,' she added, with no +effort at all. Jimmy smiled and looked pleased. + +But now the ship was made fast, and the Captain had time to notice other +things. He came towards them, and he was dressed in the best of all +possible dresses for the seafaring life. + +'What are you doing here?' he asked rather fiercely. 'Do you come to +bless or to curse?' + +'To bless, of course,' said Cyril. 'I'm sorry if it annoys you, but +we're here by magic. We come from the land of the sun-rising,' he went +on explanatorily. + +'I see,' said the Captain; no one had expected that he would. 'I didn't +notice at first, but of course I hope you're a good omen. It's needed. +And this,' he pointed to the learned gentleman, 'your slave, I presume?' + +'Not at all,' said Anthea; 'he's a very great man. A sage, don't they +call it? And we want to see all your beautiful city, and your temples +and things, and then we shall go back, and he will tell his friend, and +his friend will write a book about it.' + +'What,' asked the Captain, fingering a rope, 'is a book?' + +'A record--something written, or,' she added hastily, remembering the +Babylonian writing, 'or engraved.' + +Some sudden impulse of confidence made Jane pluck the Amulet from the +neck of her frock. + +'Like this,' she said. + +The Captain looked at it curiously, but, the other three were relieved +to notice, without any of that overwhelming interest which the mere name +of it had roused in Egypt and Babylon. + +'The stone is of our country,' he said; 'and that which is engraved on +it, it is like our writing, but I cannot read it. What is the name of +your sage?' + +'Ji-jimmy,' said Anthea hesitatingly. + +The Captain repeated, 'Ji-jimmy. Will you land?' he added. 'And shall I +lead you to the Kings?' + +'Look here,' said Robert, 'does your King hate strangers?' + +'Our Kings are ten,' said the Captain, 'and the Royal line, unbroken +from Poseidon, the father of us all, has the noble tradition to do +honour to strangers if they come in peace.' + +'Then lead on, please,' said Robert, 'though I SHOULD like to see all +over your beautiful ship, and sail about in her.' + +'That shall be later,' said the Captain; 'just now we're afraid of a +storm--do you notice that odd rumbling?' + +'That's nothing, master,' said an old sailor who stood near; 'it's the +pilchards coming in, that's all.' + +'Too loud,' said the Captain. + +There was a rather anxious pause; then the Captain stepped on to the +quay, and the others followed him. + +'Do talk to him--Jimmy,' said Anthea as they went; 'you can find out all +sorts of things for your friend's book.' + +'Please excuse me,' he said earnestly. 'If I talk I shall wake up; and +besides, I can't understand what he says.' + +No one else could think of anything to say, so that it was in complete +silence that they followed the Captain up the marble steps and through +the streets of the town. There were streets and shops and houses and +markets. + +'It's just like Babylon,' whispered Jane, 'only everything's perfectly +different.' + +'It's a great comfort the ten Kings have been properly brought up--to be +kind to strangers,' Anthea whispered to Cyril. + +'Yes,' he said, 'no deepest dungeons here.' + +There were no horses or chariots in the street, but there were handcarts +and low trolleys running on thick log-wheels, and porters carrying +packets on their heads, and a good many of the people were riding on +what looked like elephants, only the great beasts were hairy, and they +had not that mild expression we are accustomed to meet on the faces of +the elephants at the Zoo. + +'Mammoths!' murmured the learned gentleman, and stumbled over a loose +stone. + +The people in the streets kept crowding round them as they went along, +but the Captain always dispersed the crowd before it grew uncomfortably +thick by saying-- + +'Children of the Sun God and their High Priest--come to bless the City.' + +And then the people would draw back with a low murmur that sounded like +a suppressed cheer. + +Many of the buildings were covered with gold, but the gold on the bigger +buildings was of a different colour, and they had sorts of steeples of +burnished silver rising above them. + +'Are all these houses real gold?' asked Jane. + +'The temples are covered with gold, of course,' answered the Captain, +'but the houses are only oricalchum. It's not quite so expensive.' + +The learned gentleman, now very pale, stumbled along in a dazed way, +repeating: + +'Oricalchum--oricalchum.' + +'Don't be frightened,' said Anthea; 'we can get home in a minute, just +by holding up the charm. Would you rather go back now? We could easily +come some other day without you.' + +'Oh, no, no,' he pleaded fervently; 'let the dream go on. Please, please +do.' + +'The High Ji-jimmy is perhaps weary with his magic journey,' said the +Captain, noticing the blundering walk of the learned gentleman; 'and +we are yet very far from the Great Temple, where today the Kings make +sacrifice.' + +He stopped at the gate of a great enclosure. It seemed to be a sort of +park, for trees showed high above its brazen wall. + +The party waited, and almost at once the Captain came back with one of +the hairy elephants and begged them to mount. + +This they did. + +It was a glorious ride. The elephant at the Zoo--to ride on him is also +glorious, but he goes such a very little way, and then he goes back +again, which is always dull. But this great hairy beast went on and on +and on along streets and through squares and gardens. It was a glorious +city; almost everything was built of marble, red, or white, or black. +Every now and then the party crossed a bridge. + +It was not till they had climbed to the hill which is the centre of the +town that they saw that the whole city was divided into twenty circles, +alternately land and water, and over each of the water circles were the +bridges by which they had come. + +And now they were in a great square. A vast building filled up one side +of it; it was overlaid with gold, and had a dome of silver. The rest of +the buildings round the square were of oricalchum. And it looked more +splendid than you can possibly imagine, standing up bold and shining in +the sunlight. + +'You would like a bath,' said the Captain, as the hairy elephant went +clumsily down on his knees. 'It's customary, you know, before entering +the Presence. We have baths for men, women, horses, and cattle. The High +Class Baths are here. Our Father Poseidon gave us a spring of hot water +and one of cold.' + +The children had never before bathed in baths of gold. + +'It feels very splendid,' said Cyril, splashing. + +'At least, of course, it's not gold; it's or--what's its name,' said +Robert. 'Hand over that towel.' + +The bathing hall had several great pools sunk below the level of the +floor; one went down to them by steps. + +'Jimmy,' said Anthea timidly, when, very clean and boiled-looking, they +all met in the flowery courtyard of the Public, 'don't you think all +this seems much more like NOW than Babylon or Egypt--? Oh, I forgot, +you've never been there.' + +'I know a little of those nations, however,' said he, 'and I quite agree +with you. A most discerning remark--my dear,' he added awkwardly; 'this +city certainly seems to indicate a far higher level of civilization than +the Egyptian or Babylonish, and--' + +'Follow me,' said the Captain. 'Now, boys, get out of the way.' He +pushed through a little crowd of boys who were playing with dried +chestnuts fastened to a string. + +'Ginger!' remarked Robert, 'they're playing conkers, just like the kids +in Kentish Town Road!' + +They could see now that three walls surrounded the island on which they +were. The outermost wall was of brass, the Captain told them; the next, +which looked like silver, was covered with tin; and the innermost one +was of oricalchum. + +And right in the middle was a wall of gold, with golden towers and +gates. + +'Behold the Temples of Poseidon,' said the Captain. 'It is not lawful +for me to enter. I will await your return here.' + +He told them what they ought to say, and the five people from Fitzroy +Street took hands and went forward. The golden gates slowly opened. + +'We are the children of the Sun,' said Cyril, as he had been told, 'and +our High Priest, at least that's what the Captain calls him. We have a +different name for him at home.' 'What is his name?' asked a white-robed +man who stood in the doorway with his arms extended. + +'Ji-jimmy,' replied Cyril, and he hesitated as Anthea had done. +It really did seem to be taking a great liberty with so learned a +gentleman. 'And we have come to speak with your Kings in the Temple of +Poseidon--does that word sound right?' he whispered anxiously. + +'Quite,' said the learned gentleman. 'It's very odd I can understand +what you say to them, but not what they say to you.' + +'The Queen of Babylon found that too,' said Cyril; 'it's part of the +magic.' + +'Oh, what a dream!' said the learned gentleman. + +The white-robed priest had been joined by others, and all were bowing +low. + +'Enter,' he said, 'enter, Children of the Sun, with your High Ji-jimmy.' + +In an inner courtyard stood the Temple--all of silver, with gold +pinnacles and doors, and twenty enormous statues in bright gold of men +and women. Also an immense pillar of the other precious yellow metal. + +They went through the doors, and the priest led them up a stair into a +gallery from which they could look down on to the glorious place. + +'The ten Kings are even now choosing the bull. It is not lawful for me +to behold,' said the priest, and fell face downward on the floor outside +the gallery. The children looked down. + +The roof was of ivory adorned with the three precious metals, and the +walls were lined with the favourite oricalchum. + +At the far end of the Temple was a statue group, the like of which no +one living has ever seen. + +It was of gold, and the head of the chief figure reached to the roof. +That figure was Poseidon, the Father of the City. He stood in a great +chariot drawn by six enormous horses, and round about it were a hundred +mermaids riding on dolphins. + +Ten men, splendidly dressed and armed only with sticks and ropes, were +trying to capture one of some fifteen bulls who ran this way and that +about the floor of the Temple. The children held their breath, for the +bulls looked dangerous, and the great horned heads were swinging more +and more wildly. + +Anthea did not like looking at the bulls. She looked about the gallery, +and noticed that another staircase led up from it to a still higher +storey; also that a door led out into the open air, where there seemed +to be a balcony. + +So that when a shout went up and Robert whispered, 'Got him,' and she +looked down and saw the herd of bulls being driven out of the Temple by +whips, and the ten Kings following, one of them spurring with his +stick a black bull that writhed and fought in the grip of a lasso, she +answered the boy's agitated, 'Now we shan't see anything more,' with-- + +'Yes we can, there's an outside balcony.' + +So they crowded out. + +But very soon the girls crept back. + +'I don't like sacrifices,' Jane said. So she and Anthea went and talked +to the priest, who was no longer lying on his face, but sitting on the +top step mopping his forehead with his robe, for it was a hot day. + +'It's a special sacrifice,' he said; 'usually it's only done on the +justice days every five years and six years alternately. And then they +drink the cup of wine with some of the bull's blood in it, and swear +to judge truly. And they wear the sacred blue robe, and put out all the +Temple fires. But this today is because the City's so upset by the odd +noises from the sea, and the god inside the big mountain speaking with +his thunder-voice. But all that's happened so often before. If anything +could make ME uneasy it wouldn't be THAT.' + +'What would it be?' asked Jane kindly. + +'It would be the Lemmings.' + +'Who are they--enemies?' + +'They're a sort of rat; and every year they come swimming over from the +country that no man knows, and stay here awhile, and then swim away. +This year they haven't come. You know rats won't stay on a ship that's +going to be wrecked. If anything horrible were going to happen to us, +it's my belief those Lemmings would know; and that may be why they've +fought shy of us.' + +'What do you call this country?' asked the Psammead, suddenly putting +its head out of its bag. + +'Atlantis,' said the priest. + +'Then I advise you to get on to the highest ground you can find. I +remember hearing something about a flood here. Look here, you'--it +turned to Anthea; 'let's get home. The prospect's too wet for my +whiskers.' The girls obediently went to find their brothers, who were +leaning on the balcony railings. + +'Where's the learned gentleman?' asked Anthea. + +'There he is--below,' said the priest, who had come with them. 'Your +High Ji-jimmy is with the Kings.' + +The ten Kings were no longer alone. The learned gentleman--no one had +noticed how he got there--stood with them on the steps of an altar, on +which lay the dead body of the black bull. All the rest of the courtyard +was thick with people, seemingly of all classes, and all were shouting, +'The sea--the sea!' + +'Be calm,' said the most kingly of the Kings, he who had lassoed the +bull. 'Our town is strong against the thunders of the sea and of the +sky!' + +'I want to go home,' whined the Psammead. + +'We can't go without HIM,' said Anthea firmly. + +'Jimmy,' she called, 'Jimmy!' and waved to him. He heard her, and began +to come towards her through the crowd. They could see from the balcony +the sea-captain edging his way out from among the people. And his face +was dead white, like paper. + +'To the hills!' he cried in a loud and terrible voice. And above his +voice came another voice, louder, more terrible--the voice of the sea. + +The girls looked seaward. + +Across the smooth distance of the sea something huge and black rolled +towards the town. It was a wave, but a wave a hundred feet in height, a +wave that looked like a mountain--a wave rising higher and higher till +suddenly it seemed to break in two--one half of it rushed out to sea +again; the other-- + +'Oh!' cried Anthea, 'the town--the poor people!' + +'It's all thousands of years ago, really,' said Robert but his voice +trembled. They hid their eyes for a moment. They could not bear to look +down, for the wave had broken on the face of the town, sweeping over +the quays and docks, overwhelming the great storehouses and factories, +tearing gigantic stones from forts and bridges, and using them as +battering rams against the temples. Great ships were swept over the +roofs of the houses and dashed down halfway up the hill among ruined +gardens and broken buildings. The water ground brown fishing-boats to +powder on the golden roofs of Palaces. + +Then the wave swept back towards the sea. + +'I want to go home,' cried the Psammead fiercely. + +'Oh, yes, yes!' said Jane, and the boys were ready--but the learned +gentleman had not come. + +Then suddenly they heard him dash up to the inner gallery, crying-- + +'I MUST see the end of the dream.' He rushed up the higher flight. + +The others followed him. They found themselves in a sort of +turret--roofed, but open to the air at the sides. + +The learned gentleman was leaning on the parapet, and as they +rejoined him the vast wave rushed back on the town. This time it rose +higher--destroyed more. + +'Come home,' cried the Psammead; 'THAT'S the LAST, I know it is! That's +the last--over there.' It pointed with a claw that trembled. + +'Oh, come!' cried Jane, holding up the Amulet. + +'I WILL SEE the end of the dream,' cried the learned gentleman. + +'You'll never see anything else if you do,' said Cyril. 'Oh, JIMMY!' +appealed Anthea. 'I'll NEVER bring you out again!' + +'You'll never have the chance if you don't go soon,' said the Psammead. + +'I WILL see the end of the dream,' said the learned gentleman +obstinately. + +The hills around were black with people fleeing from the villages to the +mountains. And even as they fled thin smoke broke from the great white +peak, and then a faint flash of flame. Then the volcano began to throw +up its mysterious fiery inside parts. The earth trembled; ashes and +sulphur showered down; a rain of fine pumice-stone fell like snow on all +the dry land. The elephants from the forest rushed up towards the peaks; +great lizards thirty yards long broke from the mountain pools and +rushed down towards the sea. The snows melted and rushed down, first in +avalanches, then in roaring torrents. Great rocks cast up by the volcano +fell splashing in the sea miles away. + +'Oh, this is horrible!' cried Anthea. 'Come home, come home!' + +'The end of the dream,' gasped the learned gentleman. + +'Hold up the Amulet,' cried the Psammead suddenly. The place where they +stood was now crowded with men and women, and the children were strained +tight against the parapet. The turret rocked and swayed; the wave had +reached the golden wall. + +Jane held up the Amulet. + +'Now,' cried the Psammead, 'say the word!' + +And as Jane said it the Psammead leaped from its bag and bit the hand of +the learned gentleman. + +At the same moment the boys pushed him through the arch and all followed +him. + +He turned to look back, and through the arch he saw nothing but a waste +of waters, with above it the peak of the terrible mountain with fire +raging from it. + + +He staggered back to his chair. + +'What a ghastly dream!' he gasped. 'Oh, you're here, my--er--dears. Can +I do anything for you?' + +'You've hurt your hand,' said Anthea gently; 'let me bind it up.' + +The hand was indeed bleeding rather badly. + +The Psammead had crept back to its bag. All the children were very +white. + + +'Never again,' said the Psammead later on, 'will I go into the Past with +a grown-up person! I will say for you four, you do do as you're told.' + +'We didn't even find the Amulet,' said Anthea later still. + +'Of course you didn't; it wasn't there. Only the stone it was made of +was there. It fell on to a ship miles away that managed to escape and +got to Egypt. _I_ could have told you that.' + +'I wish you had,' said Anthea, and her voice was still rather shaky. +'Why didn't you?' + +'You never asked me,' said the Psammead very sulkily. 'I'm not the sort +of chap to go shoving my oar in where it's not wanted.' + +'Mr Ji-jimmy's friend will have something worth having to put in his +article now,' said Cyril very much later indeed. + +'Not he,' said Robert sleepily. 'The learned Ji-jimmy will think it's a +dream, and it's ten to one he never tells the other chap a word about it +at all.' + +Robert was quite right on both points. The learned gentleman did. And he +never did. + + + +CHAPTER 10. THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL AND JULIUS CAESAR + +A great city swept away by the sea, a beautiful country devastated by +an active volcano--these are not the sort of things you see every day of +the week. And when you do see them, no matter how many other wonders +you may have seen in your time, such sights are rather apt to take your +breath away. Atlantis had certainly this effect on the breaths of Cyril, +Robert, Anthea, and Jane. + +They remained in a breathless state for some days. The learned gentleman +seemed as breathless as anyone; he spent a good deal of what little +breath he had in telling Anthea about a wonderful dream he had. 'You +would hardly believe,' he said, 'that anyone COULD have such a detailed +vision.' + +But Anthea could believe it, she said, quite easily. + +He had ceased to talk about thought-transference. He had now seen too +many wonders to believe that. + +In consequence of their breathless condition none of the children +suggested any new excursions through the Amulet. Robert voiced the mood +of the others when he said that they were 'fed up' with Amulet for a +bit. They undoubtedly were. + +As for the Psammead, it went to sand and stayed there, worn out by +the terror of the flood and the violent exercise it had had to take in +obedience to the inconsiderate wishes of the learned gentleman and the +Babylonian queen. + +The children let it sleep. The danger of taking it about among strange +people who might at any moment utter undesirable wishes was becoming +more and more plain. + +And there are pleasant things to be done in London without any aid from +Amulets or Psammeads. You can, for instance visit the Tower of London, +the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, the Zoological Gardens, +the various Parks, the Museums at South Kensington, Madame Tussaud's +Exhibition of Waxworks, or the Botanical Gardens at Kew. You can go to +Kew by river steamer--and this is the way that the children would have +gone if they had gone at all. Only they never did, because it was when +they were discussing the arrangements for the journey, and what they +should take with them to eat and how much of it, and what the whole +thing would cost, that the adventure of the Little Black Girl began to +happen. + +The children were sitting on a seat in St James's Park. They had been +watching the pelican repulsing with careful dignity the advances of the +seagulls who are always so anxious to play games with it. The pelican +thinks, very properly, that it hasn't the figure for games, so it spends +most of its time pretending that that is not the reason why it won't +play. + +The breathlessness caused by Atlantis was wearing off a little. Cyril, +who always wanted to understand all about everything, was turning things +over in his mind. + +'I'm not; I'm only thinking,' he answered when Robert asked him what he +was so grumpy about. 'I'll tell you when I've thought it all out.' + +'If it's about the Amulet I don't want to hear it,' said Jane. + +'Nobody asked you to,' retorted Cyril mildly, 'and I haven't finished my +inside thinking about it yet. Let's go to Kew in the meantime.' + +'I'd rather go in a steamer,' said Robert; and the girls laughed. + +'That's right,' said Cyril, 'BE funny. I would.' + +'Well, he was, rather,' said Anthea. + +'I wouldn't think, Squirrel, if it hurts you so,' said Robert kindly. + +'Oh, shut up,' said Cyril, 'or else talk about Kew.' + +'I want to see the palms there,' said Anthea hastily, 'to see if they're +anything like the ones on the island where we united the Cook and the +Burglar by the Reverend Half-Curate.' + +All disagreeableness was swept away in a pleasant tide of recollections, +and 'Do you remember...?' they said. 'Have you forgotten...?' + +'My hat!' remarked Cyril pensively, as the flood of reminiscence ebbed a +little; 'we have had some times.' + +'We have that,' said Robert. + +'Don't let's have any more,' said Jane anxiously. + +'That's what I was thinking about,' Cyril replied; and just then they +heard the Little Black Girl sniff. She was quite close to them. + +She was not really a little black girl. She was shabby and not very +clean, and she had been crying so much that you could hardly see, +through the narrow chink between her swollen lids, how very blue her +eyes were. It was her dress that was black, and it was too big and too +long for her, and she wore a speckled black-ribboned sailor hat that +would have fitted a much bigger head than her little flaxen one. And she +stood looking at the children and sniffing. + +'Oh, dear!' said Anthea, jumping up. 'Whatever is the matter?' + +She put her hand on the little girl's arm. It was rudely shaken off. + +'You leave me be,' said the little girl. 'I ain't doing nothing to you.' + +'But what is it?' Anthea asked. 'Has someone been hurting you?' + +'What's that to you?' said the little girl fiercely. 'YOU'RE all right.' + +'Come away,' said Robert, pulling at Anthea's sleeve. 'She's a nasty, +rude little kid.' + +'Oh, no,' said Anthea. 'She's only dreadfully unhappy. What is it?' she +asked again. + +'Oh, YOU'RE all right,' the child repeated; 'YOU ain't agoin' to the +Union.' + +'Can't we take you home?' said Anthea; and Jane added, 'Where does your +mother live?' + +'She don't live nowheres--she's dead--so now!' said the little girl +fiercely, in tones of miserable triumph. Then she opened her swollen +eyes widely, stamped her foot in fury, and ran away. She ran no further +than to the next bench, flung herself down there and began to cry +without even trying not to. + +Anthea, quite at once, went to the little girl and put her arms as tight +as she could round the hunched-up black figure. + +'Oh, don't cry so, dear, don't, don't!' she whispered under the brim of +the large sailor hat, now very crooked indeed. 'Tell Anthea all about +it; Anthea'll help you. There, there, dear, don't cry.' + +The others stood at a distance. One or two passers-by stared curiously. + +The child was now only crying part of the time; the rest of the time she +seemed to be talking to Anthea. + +Presently Anthea beckoned Cyril. + +'It's horrible!' she said in a furious whisper, 'her father was a +carpenter and he was a steady man, and never touched a drop except on a +Saturday, and he came up to London for work, and there wasn't any, and +then he died; and her name is Imogen, and she's nine come next +November. And now her mother's dead, and she's to stay tonight with +Mrs Shrobsall--that's a landlady that's been kind--and tomorrow the +Relieving Officer is coming for her, and she's going into the Union; +that means the Workhouse. It's too terrible. What can we do?' + +'Let's ask the learned gentleman,' said Jane brightly. + +And as no one else could think of anything better the whole party walked +back to Fitzroy Street as fast as it could, the little girl holding +tight to Anthea's hand and now not crying any more, only sniffing +gently. + +The learned gentleman looked up from his writing with the smile that had +grown much easier to him than it used to be. They were quite at home +in his room now; it really seemed to welcome them. Even the mummy-case +appeared to smile as if in its distant superior ancient Egyptian way it +were rather pleased to see them than not. + +Anthea sat on the stairs with Imogen, who was nine come next November, +while the others went in and explained the difficulty. + +The learned gentleman listened with grave attention. + +'It really does seem rather rough luck,' Cyril concluded, 'because I've +often heard about rich people who wanted children most awfully--though I +know _I_ never should--but they do. There must be somebody who'd be glad +to have her.' + +'Gipsies are awfully fond of children,' Robert hopefully said. 'They're +always stealing them. Perhaps they'd have her.' + +'She's quite a nice little girl really,' Jane added; 'she was only +rude at first because we looked jolly and happy, and she wasn't. You +understand that, don't you?' + +'Yes,' said he, absently fingering a little blue image from Egypt. 'I +understand that very well. As you say, there must be some home where she +would be welcome.' He scowled thoughtfully at the little blue image. + +Anthea outside thought the explanation was taking a very long time. + +She was so busy trying to cheer and comfort the little black girl that +she never noticed the Psammead who, roused from sleep by her voice, had +shaken itself free of sand, and was coming crookedly up the stairs. It +was close to her before she saw it. She picked it up and settled it in +her lap. + +'What is it?' asked the black child. 'Is it a cat or a organ-monkey, or +what?' + +And then Anthea heard the learned gentleman say-- + +'Yes, I wish we could find a home where they would be glad to have her,' +and instantly she felt the Psammead begin to blow itself out as it sat +on her lap. + +She jumped up lifting the Psammead in her skirt, and holding Imogen by +the hand, rushed into the learned gentleman's room. + +'At least let's keep together,' she cried. 'All hold hands--quick!' + +The circle was like that formed for the Mulberry Bush or Ring-o'-Roses. +And Anthea was only able to take part in it by holding in her teeth +the hem of her frock which, thus supported, formed a bag to hold the +Psammead. + +'Is it a game?' asked the learned gentleman feebly. No one answered. + +There was a moment of suspense; then came that curious upside-down, +inside-out sensation which one almost always feels when transported +from one place to another by magic. Also there was that dizzy dimness of +sight which comes on these occasions. + +The mist cleared, the upside-down, inside-out sensation subsided, +and there stood the six in a ring, as before, only their twelve feet, +instead of standing on the carpet of the learned gentleman's room, stood +on green grass. Above them, instead of the dusky ceiling of the Fitzroy +Street floor, was a pale blue sky. And where the walls had been and the +painted mummy-case, were tall dark green trees, oaks and ashes, and in +between the trees and under them tangled bushes and creeping ivy. There +were beech-trees too, but there was nothing under them but their own +dead red drifted leaves, and here and there a delicate green fern-frond. + +And there they stood in a circle still holding hands, as though they +were playing Ring-o'-Roses or the Mulberry Bush. Just six people hand in +hand in a wood. That sounds simple, but then you must remember that they +did not know WHERE the wood was, and what's more, they didn't know WHEN +then wood was. There was a curious sort of feeling that made the learned +gentleman say-- + +'Another dream, dear me!' and made the children almost certain that they +were in a time a very long while ago. As for little Imogen, she said, +'Oh, my!' and kept her mouth very much open indeed. + +'Where are we?' Cyril asked the Psammead. + +'In Britain,' said the Psammead. + +'But when?' asked Anthea anxiously. + +'About the year fifty-five before the year you reckon time from,' said +the Psammead crossly. 'Is there anything else you want to know?' it +added, sticking its head out of the bag formed by Anthea's blue linen +frock, and turning its snail's eyes to right and left. 'I've been here +before--it's very little changed.' 'Yes, but why here?' asked Anthea. + +'Your inconsiderate friend,' the Psammead replied, 'wished to find some +home where they would be glad to have that unattractive and immature +female human being whom you have picked up--gracious knows how. In +Megatherium days properly brought-up children didn't talk to shabby +strangers in parks. Your thoughtless friend wanted a place where someone +would be glad to have this undesirable stranger. And now here you are!' + +'I see we are,' said Anthea patiently, looking round on the tall gloom +of the forest. 'But why HERE? Why NOW?' + +'You don't suppose anyone would want a child like that in YOUR times--in +YOUR towns?' said the Psammead in irritated tones. 'You've got +your country into such a mess that there's no room for half your +children--and no one to want them.' + +'That's not our doing, you know,' said Anthea gently. + +'And bringing me here without any waterproof or anything,' said the +Psammead still more crossly, 'when everyone knows how damp and foggy +Ancient Britain was.' + +'Here, take my coat,' said Robert, taking it off. Anthea spread the coat +on the ground and, putting the Psammead on it, folded it round so that +only the eyes and furry ears showed. + +'There,' she said comfortingly. 'Now if it does begin to look like rain, +I can cover you up in a minute. Now what are we to do?' + +The others who had stopped holding hands crowded round to hear the +answer to this question. Imogen whispered in an awed tone-- + +'Can't the organ monkey talk neither! I thought it was only parrots!' + +'Do?' replied the Psammead. 'I don't care what you do!' And it drew head +and ears into the tweed covering of Robert's coat. + +The others looked at each other. + +'It's only a dream,' said the learned gentleman hopefully; 'something is +sure to happen if we can prevent ourselves from waking up.' + +And sure enough, something did. + +The brooding silence of the dark forest was broken by the laughter of +children and the sound of voices. + +'Let's go and see,' said Cyril. + +'It's only a dream,' said the learned gentleman to Jane, who hung back; +'if you don't go with the tide of a dream--if you resist--you wake up, +you know.' + +There was a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a silly +person's idea of a path. They went along this in Indian file, the +learned gentleman leading. + +Quite soon they came to a large clearing in the forest. There were a +number of houses--huts perhaps you would have called them--with a sort +of mud and wood fence. + +'It's like the old Egyptian town,' whispered Anthea. + +And it was, rather. + +Some children, with no clothes on at all, were playing what looked like +Ring-o'-Roses or Mulberry Bush. That is to say, they were dancing round +in a ring, holding hands. On a grassy bank several women, dressed in +blue and white robes and tunics of beast-skins sat watching the playing +children. + +The children from Fitzroy Street stood on the fringe of the forest +looking at the games. One woman with long, fair braided hair sat a +little apart from the others, and there was a look in her eyes as she +followed the play of the children that made Anthea feel sad and sorry. + +'None of those little girls is her own little girl,' thought Anthea. + +The little black-clad London child pulled at Anthea's sleeve. + +'Look,' she said, 'that one there--she's precious like mother; mother's +'air was somethink lovely, when she 'ad time to comb it out. Mother +wouldn't never a-beat me if she'd lived 'ere--I don't suppose there's +e'er a public nearer than Epping, do you, Miss?' + +In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the forest. +The sad-eyed woman saw her. She stood up, her thin face lighted up +with a radiance like sunrise, her long, lean arms stretched towards the +London child. + +'Imogen!' she cried--at least the word was more like that than any other +word--'Imogen!' + +There was a moment of great silence; the naked children paused in their +play, the women on the bank stared anxiously. + +'Oh, it IS mother--it IS!' cried Imogen-from-London, and rushed across +the cleared space. She and her mother clung together--so closely, so +strongly that they stood an instant like a statue carved in stone. + +Then the women crowded round. 'It IS my Imogen!' cried the woman. + +'Oh it is! And she wasn't eaten by wolves. She's come back to me. Tell +me, my darling, how did you escape? Where have you been? Who has fed and +clothed you?' + +'I don't know nothink,' said Imogen. + +'Poor child!' whispered the women who crowded round, 'the terror of the +wolves has turned her brain.' + +'But you know ME?' said the fair-haired woman. + +And Imogen, clinging with black-clothed arms to the bare neck, +answered-- + +'Oh, yes, mother, I know YOU right 'nough.' + +'What is it? What do they say?' the learned gentleman asked anxiously. + +'You wished to come where someone wanted the child,' said the Psammead. +'The child says this is her mother.' + +'And the mother?' + +'You can see,' said the Psammead. + +'But is she really? Her child, I mean?' + +'Who knows?' said the Psammead; 'but each one fills the empty place in +the other's heart. It is enough.' + +'Oh,' said the learned gentleman, 'this is a good dream. I wish the +child might stay in the dream.' + +The Psammead blew itself out and granted the wish. So Imogen's future +was assured. She had found someone to want her. + +'If only all the children that no one wants,' began the learned +gentleman--but the woman interrupted. She came towards them. + +'Welcome, all!' she cried. 'I am the Queen, and my child tells me that +you have befriended her; and this I well believe, looking on your faces. +Your garb is strange, but faces I can read. The child is bewitched, I +see that well, but in this she speaks truth. Is it not so?' + +The children said it wasn't worth mentioning. + +I wish you could have seen all the honours and kindnesses lavished on +the children and the learned gentleman by those ancient Britons. + +You would have thought, to see them, that a child was something to make +a fuss about, not a bit of rubbish to be hustled about the streets and +hidden away in the Workhouse. It wasn't as grand as the entertainment at +Babylon, but somehow it was more satisfying. + +'I think you children have some wonderful influence on me,' said the +learned gentleman. 'I never dreamed such dreams before I knew you.' + +It was when they were alone that night under the stars where the Britons +had spread a heap Of dried fern for them to sleep on, that Cyril spoke. + +'Well,' he said, 'we've made it all right for Imogen, and had a jolly +good time. I vote we get home again before the fighting begins.' + +'What fighting?' asked Jane sleepily. + +'Why, Julius Caesar, you little goat,' replied her kind brother. 'Don't +you see that if this is the year fifty-five, Julius Caesar may happen at +any moment.' + +'I thought you liked Caesar,' said Robert. + +'So I do--in the history. But that's different from being killed by his +soldiers.' + +'If we saw Caesar we might persuade him not to,' said Anthea. + +'YOU persuade CAESAR,' Robert laughed. + +The learned gentleman, before anyone could stop him, said, 'I only wish +we could see Caesar some time.' + +And, of course, in just the little time the Psammead took to blow itself +out for wish-giving, the five, or six counting the Psammead, found +themselves in Caesar's camp, just outside Caesar's tent. And they saw +Caesar. The Psammead must have taken advantage of the loose wording of +the learned gentleman's wish, for it was not the same time of day as +that on which the wish had been uttered among the dried ferns. It was +sunset, and the great man sat on a chair outside his tent gazing over +the sea towards Britain--everyone knew without being told that it was +towards Britain. Two golden eagles on the top of posts stood on each +side of the tent, and on the flaps of the tent which was very gorgeous +to look at were the letters S.P.Q.R. + +The great man turned unchanged on the newcomers the august glance that +he had turned on the violet waters of the Channel. Though they had +suddenly appeared out of nothing, Caesar never showed by the faintest +movement of an eyelid, by the least tightening of that firm mouth, that +they were not some long expected embassy. He waved a calm hand towards +the sentinels, who sprang weapons in hand towards the newcomers. + +'Back!' he said in a voice that thrilled like music. 'Since when has +Caesar feared children and students?' + +To the children he seemed to speak in the only language they knew; +but the learned gentleman heard--in rather a strange accent, but quite +intelligibly--the lips of Caesar speaking in the Latin tongue, and in +that tongue, a little stiffly, he answered-- + +'It is a dream, O Caesar.' + +'A dream?' repeated Caesar. 'What is a dream?' + +'This,' said the learned gentleman. + +'Not it,' said Cyril, 'it's a sort of magic. We come out of another time +and another place.' + +'And we want to ask you not to trouble about conquering Britain,' said +Anthea; 'it's a poor little place, not worth bothering about.' + +'Are you from Britain?' the General asked. 'Your clothes are uncouth, +but well woven, and your hair is short as the hair of Roman citizens, +not long like the hair of barbarians, yet such I deem you to be.' 'We're +not,' said Jane with angry eagerness; 'we're not barbarians at all. We +come from the country where the sun never sets, and we've read about +you in books; and our country's full of fine things--St Paul's, and the +Tower of London, and Madame Tussaud's Exhibition, and--' Then the others +stopped her. + +'Don't talk nonsense,' said Robert in a bitter undertone. + +Caesar looked at the children a moment in silence. Then he called a +soldier and spoke with him apart. Then he said aloud-- + +'You three elder children may go where you will within the camp. Few +children are privileged to see the camp of Caesar. The student and the +smaller girl-child will remain here with me.' + +Nobody liked this; but when Caesar said a thing that thing was so, and +there was an end to it. So the three went. + +Left alone with Jane and the learned gentleman, the great Roman found it +easy enough to turn them inside out. But it was not easy, even for him, +to make head or tail of the insides of their minds when he had got at +them. + +The learned gentleman insisted that the whole thing was a dream, and +refused to talk much, on the ground that if he did he would wake up. + +Jane, closely questioned, was full of information about railways, +electric lights, balloons, men-of-war, cannons, and dynamite. + +'And do they fight with swords?' asked the General. + +'Yes, swords and guns and cannons.' + +Caesar wanted to know what guns were. + +'You fire them,' said Jane, 'and they go bang, and people fall down +dead.' + +'But what are guns like?' + +Jane found them hard to describe. + +'But Robert has a toy one in his pocket,' she said. So the others were +recalled. + +The boys explained the pistol to Caesar very fully, and he looked at it +with the greatest interest. It was a two-shilling pistol, the one that +had done such good service in the old Egyptian village. + +'I shall cause guns to be made,' said Caesar, 'and you will be detained +till I know whether you have spoken the truth. I had just decided that +Britain was not worth the bother of invading. But what you tell me +decides me that it is very much worth while.' + +'But it's all nonsense,' said Anthea. 'Britain is just a savage sort of +island--all fogs and trees and big rivers. But the people are kind. We +know a little girl there named Imogen. And it's no use your making +guns because you can't fire them without gunpowder, and that won't be +invented for hundreds of years, and we don't know how to make it, and +we can't tell you. Do go straight home, dear Caesar, and let poor little +Britain alone.' + +'But this other girl-child says--' said Caesar. + +'All Jane's been telling you is what it's going to be,' Anthea +interrupted, 'hundreds and hundreds of years from now.' + +'The little one is a prophetess, eh?' said Caesar, with a whimsical +look. 'Rather young for the business, isn't she?' + +'You can call her a prophetess if you like,' said Cyril, 'but what +Anthea says is true.' + +'Anthea?' said Caesar. 'That's a Greek name.' + +'Very likely,' said Cyril, worriedly. 'I say, I do wish you'd give up +this idea of conquering Britain. It's not worth while, really it isn't!' + +'On the contrary,' said Caesar, 'what you've told me has decided me to +go, if it's only to find out what Britain is really like. Guards, detain +these children.' + +'Quick,' said Robert, 'before the guards begin detaining. We had enough +of that in Babylon.' + +Jane held up the Amulet away from the sunset, and said the word. The +learned gentleman was pushed through and the others more quickly than +ever before passed through the arch back into their own times and the +quiet dusty sitting-room of the learned gentleman. + + +It is a curious fact that when Caesar was encamped on the coast of +Gaul--somewhere near Boulogne it was, I believe--he was sitting before +his tent in the glow of the sunset, looking out over the violet waters +of the English Channel. Suddenly he started, rubbed his eyes, and called +his secretary. The young man came quickly from within the tent. + +'Marcus,' said Caesar. 'I have dreamed a very wonderful dream. Some +of it I forget, but I remember enough to decide what was not before +determined. Tomorrow the ships that have been brought round from the +Ligeris shall be provisioned. We shall sail for this three-cornered +island. First, we will take but two legions. + +This, if what we have heard be true, should suffice. But if my dream be +true, then a hundred legions will not suffice. For the dream I dreamed +was the most wonderful that ever tormented the brain even of Caesar. And +Caesar has dreamed some strange things in his time.' + + +'And if you hadn't told Caesar all that about how things are now, he'd +never have invaded Britain,' said Robert to Jane as they sat down to +tea. + +'Oh, nonsense,' said Anthea, pouring out; 'it was all settled hundreds +of years ago.' + +'I don't know,' said Cyril. 'Jam, please. This about time being only +a thingummy of thought is very confusing. If everything happens at the +same time--' + +'It CAN'T!' said Anthea stoutly, 'the present's the present and the +past's the past.' + +'Not always,' said Cyril. + +'When we were in the Past the present was the future. Now then!' he +added triumphantly. + +And Anthea could not deny it. + +'I should have liked to see more of the camp,' said Robert. + +'Yes, we didn't get much for our money--but Imogen is happy, that's one +thing,' said Anthea. 'We left her happy in the Past. I've often seen +about people being happy in the Past, in poetry books. I see what it +means now.' + +'It's not a bad idea,' said the Psammead sleepily, putting its head out +of its bag and taking it in again suddenly, 'being left in the Past.' + +Everyone remembered this afterwards, when-- + + + +CHAPTER 11. BEFORE PHARAOH + +It was the day after the adventure of Julius Caesar and the Little Black +Girl that Cyril, bursting into the bathroom to wash his hands for +dinner (you have no idea how dirty they were, for he had been playing +shipwrecked mariners all the morning on the leads at the back of the +house, where the water-cistern is), found Anthea leaning her elbows on +the edge of the bath, and crying steadily into it. + +'Hullo!' he said, with brotherly concern, 'what's up now? Dinner'll be +cold before you've got enough salt-water for a bath.' + +'Go away,' said Anthea fiercely. 'I hate you! I hate everybody!' + +There was a stricken pause. + +'_I_ didn't know,' said Cyril tamely. + +'Nobody ever does know anything,' sobbed Anthea. + +'I didn't know you were waxy. I thought you'd just hurt your fingers +with the tap again like you did last week,' Cyril carefully explained. + +'Oh--fingers!' sneered Anthea through her sniffs. + +'Here, drop it, Panther,' he said uncomfortably. 'You haven't been +having a row or anything?' + +'No,' she said. 'Wash your horrid hands, for goodness' sake, if that's +what you came for, or go.' + +Anthea was so seldom cross that when she was cross the others were +always more surprised than angry. + +Cyril edged along the side of the bath and stood beside her. He put his +hand on her arm. + +'Dry up, do,' he said, rather tenderly for him. And, finding that though +she did not at once take his advice she did not seem to resent it, he +put his arm awkwardly across her shoulders and rubbed his head against +her ear. + +'There!' he said, in the tone of one administering a priceless cure for +all possible sorrows. 'Now, what's up?' + +'Promise you won't laugh?' + +'I don't feel laughish myself,' said Cyril, dismally. + +'Well, then,' said Anthea, leaning her ear against his head, 'it's +Mother.' + +'What's the matter with Mother?' asked Cyril, with apparent want of +sympathy. 'She was all right in her letter this morning.' + +'Yes; but I want her so.' + +'You're not the only one,' said Cyril briefly, and the brevity of his +tone admitted a good deal. + +'Oh, yes,' said Anthea, 'I know. We all want her all the time. But I +want her now most dreadfully, awfully much. I never wanted anything so +much. That Imogen child--the way the ancient British Queen cuddled her +up! And Imogen wasn't me, and the Queen was Mother. And then her letter +this morning! And about The Lamb liking the salt bathing! And she bathed +him in this very bath the night before she went away--oh, oh, oh!' + +Cyril thumped her on the back. + +'Cheer up,' he said. 'You know my inside thinking that I was doing? +Well, that was partly about Mother. We'll soon get her back. If you'll +chuck it, like a sensible kid, and wash your face, I'll tell you about +it. That's right. You let me get to the tap. Can't you stop crying? +Shall I put the door-key down your back?' + +'That's for noses,' said Anthea, 'and I'm not a kid any more than you +are,' but she laughed a little, and her mouth began to get back into its +proper shape. You know what an odd shape your mouth gets into when you +cry in earnest. + +'Look here,' said Cyril, working the soap round and round between his +hands in a thick slime of grey soapsuds. 'I've been thinking. We've only +just PLAYED with the Amulet so far. We've got to work it now--WORK it +for all it's worth. And it isn't only Mother either. There's Father out +there all among the fighting. I don't howl about it, but I THINK--Oh, +bother the soap!' The grey-lined soap had squirted out under the +pressure of his fingers, and had hit Anthea's chin with as much force as +though it had been shot from a catapult. + +'There now,' she said regretfully, 'now I shall have to wash my face.' + +'You'd have had to do that anyway,' said Cyril with conviction. 'Now, my +idea's this. You know missionaries?' + +'Yes,' said Anthea, who did not know a single one. + +'Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, and +hats, and braces, and really useful things--things the savages haven't +got, and never heard about. And the savages love them for their +kind generousness, and give them pearls, and shells, and ivory, and +cassowaries. And that's the way--' + +'Wait a sec,' said Anthea, splashing. 'I can't hear what you're saying. +Shells and--' + +'Shells, and things like that. The great thing is to get people to love +you by being generous. And that's what we've got to do. Next time we go +into the Past we'll regularly fit out the expedition. You remember how +the Babylonian Queen froze on to that pocket-book? Well, we'll take +things like that. And offer them in exchange for a sight of the Amulet.' + +'A sight of it is not much good.' + +'No, silly. But, don't you see, when we've seen it we shall know where +it is, and we can go and take it in the night when everybody is asleep.' + +'It wouldn't be stealing, would it?' said Anthea thoughtfully, 'because +it will be such an awfully long time ago when we do it. Oh, there's that +bell again.' + +As soon as dinner was eaten (it was tinned salmon and lettuce, and a jam +tart), and the cloth cleared away, the idea was explained to the others, +and the Psammead was aroused from sand, and asked what it thought would +be good merchandise with which to buy the affection of say, the Ancient +Egyptians, and whether it thought the Amulet was likely to be found in +the Court of Pharaoh. + +But it shook its head, and shot out its snail's eyes hopelessly. + +'I'm not allowed to play in this game,' it said. 'Of course I COULD find +out in a minute where the thing was, only I mayn't. But I may go so far +as to own that your idea of taking things with you isn't a bad one. And +I shouldn't show them all at once. Take small things and conceal them +craftily about your persons.' + +This advice seemed good. Soon the table was littered over with things +which the children thought likely to interest the Ancient Egyptians. +Anthea brought dolls, puzzle blocks, a wooden tea-service, a green +leather case with Necessaire written on it in gold letters. Aunt +Emma had once given it to Anthea, and it had then contained scissors, +penknife, bodkin, stiletto, thimble, corkscrew, and glove-buttoner. The +scissors, knife, and thimble, and penknife were, of course, lost, but +the other things were there and as good as new. Cyril contributed lead +soldiers, a cannon, a catapult, a tin-opener, a tie-clip, and a tennis +ball, and a padlock--no key. Robert collected a candle ('I don't suppose +they ever saw a self-fitting paraffin one,' he said), a penny Japanese +pin-tray, a rubber stamp with his father's name and address on it, and a +piece of putty. + +Jane added a key-ring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held +cold-cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, and a key--no +lock. + +'We can't take all this rubbish,' said Robert, with some scorn. 'We must +just each choose one thing.' + +The afternoon passed very agreeably in the attempt to choose from the +table the four most suitable objects. But the four children could not +agree what was suitable, and at last Cyril said-- + +'Look here, let's each be blindfolded and reach out, and the first thing +you touch you stick to.' + +This was done. + +Cyril touched the padlock. + +Anthea got the Necessaire. + +Robert clutched the candle. + +Jane picked up the tie-clip. + +'It's not much,' she said. 'I don't believe Ancient Egyptians wore +ties.' + +'Never mind,' said Anthea. 'I believe it's luckier not to really choose. +In the stories it's always the thing the wood-cutter's son picks up in +the forest, and almost throws away because he thinks it's no good, that +turns out to be the magic thing in the end; or else someone's lost it, +and he is rewarded with the hand of the King's daughter in marriage.' + +'I don't want any hands in marriage, thank you.' said Cyril firmly. + +'Nor yet me,' said Robert. 'It's always the end of the adventures when +it comes to the marriage hands.' + +'ARE we ready?' said Anthea. + +'It IS Egypt we're going to, isn't it?--nice Egypt?' said Jane. 'I +won't go anywhere I don't know about--like that dreadful big-wavy +burning-mountain city,' she insisted. + +Then the Psammead was coaxed into its bag. 'I say,' said Cyril suddenly, +'I'm rather sick of kings. And people notice you so in palaces. Besides +the Amulet's sure to be in a Temple. Let's just go among the common +people, and try to work ourselves up by degrees. We might get taken on +as Temple assistants.' + +'Like beadles,' said Anthea, 'or vergers. They must have splendid +chances of stealing the Temple treasures.' + +'Righto!' was the general rejoinder. The charm was held up. It grew big +once again, and once again the warm golden Eastern light glowed softly +beyond it. + +As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang in their +ears. They went suddenly from the quiet of Fitzroy Street dining-room +into a very angry Eastern crowd, a crowd much too angry to notice them. +They edged through it to the wall of a house and stood there. The crowd +was of men, women, and children. They were of all sorts of complexions, +and pictures of them might have been coloured by any child with +a shilling paint-box. The colours that child would have used for +complexions would have been yellow ochre, red ochre, light red, sepia, +and indian ink. But their faces were painted already--black eyebrows +and lashes, and some red lips. The women wore a sort of pinafore with +shoulder straps, and loose things wound round their heads and shoulders. +The men wore very little clothing--for they were the working people--and +the Egyptian boys and girls wore nothing at all, unless you count +the little ornaments hung on chains round their necks and waists. The +children saw all this before they could hear anything distinctly. + +Everyone was shouting so. + +But a voice sounded above the other voices, and presently it was +speaking in a silence. + +'Comrades and fellow workers,' it said, and it was the voice of a +tall, coppery-coloured man who had climbed into a chariot that had been +stopped by the crowd. Its owner had bolted, muttering something about +calling the Guards, and now the man spoke from it. 'Comrades and fellow +workers, how long are we to endure the tyranny of our masters, who live +in idleness and luxury on the fruit of our toil? They only give us a +bare subsistence wage, and they live on the fat of the land. We labour +all our lives to keep them in wanton luxury. Let us make an end of it!' + +A roar of applause answered him. + +'How are you going to do it?' cried a voice. + +'You look out,' cried another, 'or you'll get yourself into trouble.' + +'I've heard almost every single word of that,' whispered Robert, 'in +Hyde Park last Sunday!' + +'Let us strike for more bread and onions and beer, and a longer mid-day +rest,' the speaker went on. 'You are tired, you are hungry, you are +thirsty. You are poor, your wives and children are pining for food. The +barns of the rich are full to bursting with the corn we want, the corn +our labour has grown. To the granaries!' + +'To the granaries!' cried half the crowd; but another voice shouted +clear above the tumult, 'To Pharaoh! To the King! Let's present a +petition to the King! He will listen to the voice of the oppressed!' + +For a moment the crowd swayed one way and another--first towards the +granaries and then towards the palace. Then, with a rush like that of an +imprisoned torrent suddenly set free, it surged along the street towards +the palace, and the children were carried with it. Anthea found it +difficult to keep the Psammead from being squeezed very uncomfortably. + +The crowd swept through the streets of dull-looking houses with few +windows, very high up, across the market where people were not buying +but exchanging goods. In a momentary pause Robert saw a basket of onions +exchanged for a hair comb and five fish for a string of beads. The +people in the market seemed better off than those in the crowd; they +had finer clothes, and more of them. They were the kind of people who, +nowadays, would have lived at Brixton or Brockley. + +'What's the trouble now?' a languid, large-eyed lady in a crimped, +half-transparent linen dress, with her black hair very much braided and +puffed out, asked of a date-seller. + +'Oh, the working-men--discontented as usual,' the man answered. 'Listen +to them. Anyone would think it mattered whether they had a little more +or less to eat. Dregs of society!' said the date-seller. + +'Scum!' said the lady. + +'And I've heard THAT before, too,' said Robert. + +At that moment the voice of the crowd changed, from anger to doubt, from +doubt to fear. There were other voices shouting; they shouted defiance +and menace, and they came nearer very quickly. There was the rattle of +wheels and the pounding of hoofs. A voice shouted, 'Guards!' + +'The Guards! The Guards!' shouted another voice, and the crowd of +workmen took up the cry. 'The Guards! Pharaoh's Guards!' And swaying a +little once more, the crowd hung for a moment as it were balanced. Then +as the trampling hoofs came nearer the workmen fled dispersed, up alleys +and into the courts of houses, and the Guards in their embossed leather +chariots swept down the street at the gallop, their wheels clattering +over the stones, and their dark-coloured, blue tunics blown open and +back with the wind of their going. + +'So THAT riot's over,' said the crimped-linen-dressed lady; 'that's +a blessing! And did you notice the Captain of the Guard? What a very +handsome man he was, to be sure!' + +The four children had taken advantage of the moment's pause before the +crowd turned to fly, to edge themselves and drag each other into an +arched doorway. + +Now they each drew a long breath and looked at the others. + +'We're well out of THAT,' said Cyril. + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'but I do wish the poor men hadn't been driven back +before they could get to the King. He might have done something for +them.' + +'Not if he was the one in the Bible he wouldn't,' said Jane. 'He had a +hard heart.' 'Ah, that was the Moses one,' Anthea explained. 'The Joseph +one was quite different. I should like to see Pharaoh's house. I wonder +whether it's like the Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace.' + +'I thought we decided to try to get taken on in a Temple,' said Cyril in +injured tones. + +'Yes, but we've got to know someone first. Couldn't we make friends +with a Temple doorkeeper--we might give him the padlock or something. I +wonder which are temples and which are palaces,' Robert added, glancing +across the market-place to where an enormous gateway with huge side +buildings towered towards the sky. To right and left of it were other +buildings only a little less magnificent. + +'Did you wish to seek out the Temple of Amen Ra?' asked a soft voice +behind them, 'or the Temple of Mut, or the Temple of Khonsu?' + +They turned to find beside them a young man. He was shaved clean from +head to foot, and on his feet were light papyrus sandals. He was clothed +in a linen tunic of white, embroidered heavily in colours. He was gay +with anklets, bracelets, and armlets of gold, richly inlaid. He wore +a ring on his finger, and he had a short jacket of gold embroidery +something like the Zouave soldiers wear, and on his neck was a gold +collar with many amulets hanging from it. But among the amulets the +children could see none like theirs. + +'It doesn't matter which Temple,' said Cyril frankly. + +'Tell me your mission,' said the young man. 'I am a divine father of the +Temple of Amen Ra and perhaps I can help you.' + +'Well,' said Cyril, 'we've come from the great Empire on which the sun +never sets.' + +'I thought somehow that you'd come from some odd, out-of-the-way spot,' +said the priest with courtesy. + +'And we've seen a good many palaces. We thought we should like to see a +Temple, for a change,' said Robert. + +The Psammead stirred uneasily in its embroidered bag. + +'Have you brought gifts to the Temple?' asked the priest cautiously. + +'We HAVE got some gifts,' said Cyril with equal caution. 'You see +there's magic mixed up in it. So we can't tell you everything. But we +don't want to give our gifts for nothing.' + +'Beware how you insult the god,' said the priest sternly. 'I also can +do magic. I can make a waxen image of you, and I can say words which, as +the wax image melts before the fire, will make you dwindle away and at +last perish miserably.' + +'Pooh!' said Cyril stoutly, 'that's nothing. _I_ can make FIRE itself!' + +'I should jolly well like to see you do it,' said the priest +unbelievingly. + +'Well, you shall,' said Cyril, 'nothing easier. Just stand close round +me.' + +'Do you need no preparation--no fasting, no incantations?' The priest's +tone was incredulous. + +'The incantation's quite short,' said Cyril, taking the hint; 'and as +for fasting, it's not needed in MY sort of magic. Union Jack, Printing +Press, Gunpowder, Rule Britannia! Come, Fire, at the end of this little +stick!' + +He had pulled a match from his pocket, and as he ended the incantation +which contained no words that it seemed likely the Egyptian had ever +heard he stooped in the little crowd of his relations and the priest and +struck the match on his boot. He stood up, shielding the flame with one +hand. + +'See?' he said, with modest pride. 'Here, take it into your hand.' + +'No, thank you,' said the priest, swiftly backing. 'Can you do that +again?' + +'Yes.' + +'Then come with me to the great double house of Pharaoh. He loves good +magic, and he will raise you to honour and glory. There's no need of +secrets between initiates,' he went on confidentially. 'The fact is, +I am out of favour at present owing to a little matter of failure of +prophecy. I told him a beautiful princess would be sent to him from +Syria, and, lo! a woman thirty years old arrived. But she WAS a +beautiful woman not so long ago. Time is only a mode of thought, you +know.' + +The children thrilled to the familiar words. + +'So you know that too, do you?' said Cyril. + +'It is part of the mystery of all magic, is it not?' said the priest. +'Now if I bring you to Pharaoh the little unpleasantness I spoke of will +be forgotten. And I will ask Pharaoh, the Great House, Son of the Sun, +and Lord of the South and North, to decree that you shall lodge in the +Temple. Then you can have a good look round, and teach me your magic. +And I will teach you mine.' + +This idea seemed good--at least it was better than any other which at +that moment occurred to anybody, so they followed the priest through the +city. + +The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the priest +explained, were built within walls twenty to twenty-five feet high, +and such windows as showed in the walls were very high up. The tops of +palm-trees showed above the walls. The poor people's houses were little +square huts with a door and two windows, and smoke coming out of a hole +in the back. + +'The poor Egyptians haven't improved so very much in their building +since the first time we came to Egypt,' whispered Cyril to Anthea. + +The huts were roofed with palm branches, and everywhere there were +chickens, and goats, and little naked children kicking about in the +yellow dust. On one roof was a goat, who had climbed up and was eating +the dry palm-leaves with snorts and head-tossings of delight. Over every +house door was some sort of figure or shape. + +'Amulets,' the priest explained, 'to keep off the evil eye.' + +'I don't think much of your "nice Egypt",' Robert whispered to Jane; +'it's simply not a patch on Babylon.' + +'Ah, you wait till you see the palace,' Jane whispered back. + +The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they had yet +seen that day, though it would have made but a poor show beside that +of the Babylonian King. They came to it through a great square pillared +doorway of sandstone that stood in a high brick wall. The shut doors +were of massive cedar, with bronze hinges, and were studded with bronze +nails. At the side was a little door and a wicket gate, and through +this the priest led the children. He seemed to know a word that made the +sentries make way for him. + +Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of trees +and flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus flowers at +the margin, and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and looking, as Jane +said, quite modern. + +'The guard-chamber, the store-houses, the queen's house,' said the +priest, pointing them out. + +They passed through open courtyards, paved with flat stones, and the +priest whispered to a guard at a great inner gate. + +'We are fortunate,' he said to the children, 'Pharaoh is even now in +the Court of Honour. Now, don't forget to be overcome with respect and +admiration. It won't do any harm if you fall flat on your faces. And +whatever you do, don't speak until you're spoken to.' + +'There used to be that rule in our country,' said Robert, 'when my +father was a little boy.' + +At the outer end of the great hall a crowd of people were arguing with +and even shoving the Guards, who seemed to make it a rule not to let +anyone through unless they were bribed to do it. The children heard +several promises of the utmost richness, and wondered whether they would +ever be kept. + +All round the hall were pillars of painted wood. The roof was of cedar, +gorgeously inlaid. About half-way up the hall was a wide, shallow step +that went right across the hall; then a little farther on another; and +then a steep flight of narrower steps, leading right up to the throne on +which Pharaoh sat. He sat there very splendid, his red and white double +crown on his head, and his sceptre in his hand. The throne had a canopy +of wood and wooden pillars painted in bright colours. On a low, broad +bench that ran all round the hall sat the friends, relatives, and +courtiers of the King, leaning on richly-covered cushions. + +The priest led the children up the steps till they all stood before the +throne; and then, suddenly, he fell on his face with hands outstretched. +The others did the same, Anthea falling very carefully because of the +Psammead. + +'Raise them,' said the voice of Pharaoh, 'that they may speak to me.' + +The officers of the King's household raised them. + +'Who are these strangers?' Pharaoh asked, and added very crossly, 'And +what do you mean, Rekh-mara, by daring to come into my presence while +your innocence is not established?' + +'Oh, great King,' said the young priest, 'you are the very image of +Ra, and the likeness of his son Horus in every respect. You know the +thoughts of the hearts of the gods and of men, and you have divined +that these strangers are the children of the children of the vile and +conquered Kings of the Empire where the sun never sets. They know a +magic not known to the Egyptians. And they come with gifts in their +hands as tribute to Pharaoh, in whose heart is the wisdom of the gods, +and on his lips their truth.' + +'That is all very well,' said Pharaoh, 'but where are the gifts?' + +The children, bowing as well as they could in their embarrassment at +finding themselves the centre of interest in a circle more grand, more +golden and more highly coloured than they could have imagined possible, +pulled out the padlock, the Necessaire, and the tie-clip. 'But it's not +tribute all the same,' Cyril muttered. 'England doesn't pay tribute!' + +Pharaoh examined all the things with great interest when the chief of +the household had taken them up to him. 'Deliver them to the Keeper of +the Treasury,' he said to one near him. And to the children he said-- + +'A small tribute, truly, but strange, and not without worth. And the +magic, O Rekh-mara?' + +'These unworthy sons of a conquered nation...' began Rekh-mara. + +'Nothing of the kind!' Cyril whispered angrily. + +'... of a vile and conquered nation, can make fire to spring from dry +wood--in the sight of all.' + +'I should jolly well like to see them do it,' said Pharaoh, just as the +priest had done. + +So Cyril, without more ado, did it. + +'Do more magic,' said the King, with simple appreciation. + +'He cannot do any more magic,' said Anthea suddenly, and all eyes were +turned on her, 'because of the voice of the free people who are shouting +for bread and onions and beer and a long mid-day rest. If the people had +what they wanted, he could do more.' + +'A rude-spoken girl,' said Pharaoh. 'But give the dogs what they want,' +he said, without turning his head. 'Let them have their rest and their +extra rations. There are plenty of slaves to work.' + +A richly-dressed official hurried out. + +'You will be the idol of the people,' Rekh-mara whispered joyously; 'the +Temple of Amen will not contain their offerings.' + +Cyril struck another match, and all the court was overwhelmed with +delight and wonder. And when Cyril took the candle from his pocket and +lighted it with the match, and then held the burning candle up before +the King the enthusiasm knew no bounds. + +'Oh, greatest of all, before whom sun and moon and stars bow down,' said +Rekh-mara insinuatingly, 'am I pardoned? Is my innocence made plain?' + +'As plain as it ever will be, I daresay,' said Pharaoh shortly. 'Get +along with you. You are pardoned. Go in peace.' The priest went with +lightning swiftness. + +'And what,' said the King suddenly, 'is it that moves in that sack? + +Show me, oh strangers.' + +There was nothing for it but to show the Psammead. + +'Seize it,' said Pharaoh carelessly. 'A very curious monkey. It will be +a nice little novelty for my wild beast collection.' + +And instantly, the entreaties of the children availing as little as the +bites of the Psammead, though both bites and entreaties were fervent, it +was carried away from before their eyes. + +'Oh, DO be careful!' cried Anthea. 'At least keep it dry! Keep it in its +sacred house!' + +She held up the embroidered bag. + +'It's a magic creature,' cried Robert; 'it's simply priceless!' + +'You've no right to take it away,' cried Jane incautiously. 'It's a +shame, a barefaced robbery, that's what it is!' + +There was an awful silence. Then Pharaoh spoke. + +'Take the sacred house of the beast from them,' he said, 'and imprison +all. Tonight after supper it may be our pleasure to see more magic. +Guard them well, and do not torture them--yet!' + +'Oh, dear!' sobbed Jane, as they were led away. 'I knew exactly what it +would be! Oh, I wish you hadn't!' + +'Shut up, silly,' said Cyril. 'You know you WOULD come to Egypt. It was +your own idea entirely. Shut up. It'll be all right.' + +'I thought we should play ball with queens,' sobbed Jane, 'and have no +end of larks! And now everything's going to be perfectly horrid!' + +The room they were shut up in WAS a room, and not a dungeon, as the +elder ones had feared. That, as Anthea said, was one comfort. There +were paintings on the wall that at any other time would have been most +interesting. And a sort of low couch, and chairs. When they were alone +Jane breathed a sigh of relief. 'Now we can get home all right,' she +said. + +'And leave the Psammead?' said Anthea reproachfully. + +'Wait a sec. I've got an idea,' said Cyril. He pondered for a few +moments. Then he began hammering on the heavy cedar door. It opened, and +a guard put in his head. + +'Stop that row,' he said sternly, 'or--' + +'Look here,' Cyril interrupted, 'it's very dull for you isn't it? Just +doing nothing but guard us. Wouldn't you like to see some magic? We're +not too proud to do it for you. Wouldn't you like to see it?' + +'I don't mind if I do,' said the guard. + +'Well then, you get us that monkey of ours that was taken away, and +we'll show you.' + +'How do I know you're not making game of me?' asked the soldier. +'Shouldn't wonder if you only wanted to get the creature so as to set it +on me. I daresay its teeth and claws are poisonous.' 'Well, look here,' +said Robert. 'You see we've got nothing with us? You just shut the door, +and open it again in five minutes, and we'll have got a magic--oh, I +don't know--a magic flower in a pot for you.' + +'If you can do that you can do anything,' said the soldier, and he went +out and barred the door. + +Then, of course, they held up the Amulet. They found the East by holding +it up, and turning slowly till the Amulet began to grow big, walked home +through it, and came back with a geranium in full scarlet flower from +the staircase window of the Fitzroy Street house. + +'Well!' said the soldier when he came in. 'I really am--!' + +'We can do much more wonderful things than that--oh, ever so much,' said +Anthea persuasively, 'if we only have our monkey. And here's twopence +for yourself.' + +The soldier looked at the twopence. + +'What's this?' he said. + +Robert explained how much simpler it was to pay money for things than +to exchange them as the people were doing in the market. Later on the +soldier gave the coins to his captain, who, later still, showed them to +Pharaoh, who of course kept them and was much struck with the idea. +That was really how coins first came to be used in Egypt. You will not +believe this, I daresay, but really, if you believe the rest of the +story, I don't see why you shouldn't believe this as well. + +'I say,' said Anthea, struck by a sudden thought, 'I suppose it'll be +all right about those workmen? The King won't go back on what he said +about them just because he's angry with us?' + +'Oh, no,' said the soldier, 'you see, he's rather afraid of magic. He'll +keep to his word right enough.' + +'Then THAT'S all right,' said Robert; and Anthea said softly and +coaxingly-- + +'Ah, DO get us the monkey, and then you'll see some lovely magic. +Do--there's a nice, kind soldier.' + +'I don't know where they've put your precious monkey, but if I can get +another chap to take on my duty here I'll see what I can do,' he said +grudgingly, and went out. + +'Do you mean,' said Robert, 'that we're going off without even TRYING +for the other half of the Amulet?' + +'I really think we'd better,' said Anthea tremulously. 'Of course the +other half of the Amulet's here somewhere or our half wouldn't have +brought us here. I do wish we could find it. It is a pity we don't +know any REAL magic. Then we could find out. I do wonder where it +is--exactly.' + +If they had only known it, something very like the other half of the +Amulet was very near them. It hung round the neck of someone, and +that someone was watching them through a chink, high up in the wall, +specially devised for watching people who were imprisoned. But they did +not know. + +There was nearly an hour of anxious waiting. They tried to take an +interest in the picture on the wall, a picture of harpers playing +very odd harps and women dancing at a feast. They examined the painted +plaster floor, and the chairs were of white painted wood with coloured +stripes at intervals. + +But the time went slowly, and everyone had time to think of how Pharaoh +had said, 'Don't torture them--YET.' + +'If the worst comes to the worst,' said Cyril, 'we must just bunk, and +leave the Psammead. I believe it can take care of itself well enough. +They won't kill it or hurt it when they find it can speak and give +wishes. They'll build it a temple, I shouldn't wonder.' + +'I couldn't bear to go without it,' said Anthea, 'and Pharaoh said +"After supper", that won't be just yet. And the soldier WAS curious. I'm +sure we're all right for the present.' + +All the same, the sounds of the door being unbarred seemed one of the +prettiest sounds possible. + +'Suppose he hasn't got the Psammead?' whispered Jane. + +But that doubt was set at rest by the Psammead itself; for almost before +the door was open it sprang through the chink of it into Anthea's arms, +shivering and hunching up its fur. + +'Here's its fancy overcoat,' said the soldier, holding out the bag, into +which the Psammead immediately crept. + +'Now,' said Cyril, 'what would you like us to do? Anything you'd like us +to get for you?' + +'Any little trick you like,' said the soldier. 'If you can get a strange +flower blooming in an earthenware vase you can get anything, I suppose,' +he said. 'I just wish I'd got two men's loads of jewels from the King's +treasury. That's what I've always wished for.' + +At the word 'WISH' the children knew that the Psammead would attend to +THAT bit of magic. It did, and the floor was littered with a spreading +heap of gold and precious stones. + +'Any other little trick?' asked Cyril loftily. 'Shall we become +invisible? Vanish?' + +'Yes, if you like,' said the soldier; 'but not through the door, you +don't.' + +He closed it carefully and set his broad Egyptian back against it. + +'No! no!' cried a voice high up among the tops of the tall wooden +pillars that stood against the wall. There was a sound of someone moving +above. + +The soldier was as much surprised as anybody. + +'That's magic, if you like,' he said. + +And then Jane held up the Amulet, uttering the word of Power. At the +sound of it and at the sight of the Amulet growing into the great arch +the soldier fell flat on his face among the jewels with a cry of awe and +terror. + +The children went through the arch with a quickness born of long +practice. But Jane stayed in the middle of the arch and looked back. + +The others, standing on the dining-room carpet in Fitzroy Street, turned +and saw her still in the arch. 'Someone's holding her,' cried Cyril. 'We +must go back.' + +But they pulled at Jane's hands just to see if she would come, and, of +course, she did come. + +Then, as usual, the arch was little again and there they all were. + +'Oh, I do wish you hadn't!' Jane said crossly. 'It WAS so interesting. +The priest had come in and he was kicking the soldier, and telling +him he'd done it now, and they must take the jewels and flee for their +lives.' + +'And did they?' + +'I don't know. You interfered,' said Jane ungratefully. 'I SHOULD have +liked to see the last of it.' + +As a matter of fact, none of them had seen the last of it--if by 'it' +Jane meant the adventure of the Priest and the Soldier. + + + +CHAPTER 12. THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY + +'Look here, said Cyril, sitting on the dining-table and swinging his +legs; 'I really have got it.' + +'Got what?' was the not unnatural rejoinder of the others. + +Cyril was making a boat with a penknife and a piece of wood, and the +girls were making warm frocks for their dolls, for the weather was +growing chilly. + +'Why, don't you see? It's really not any good our going into the Past +looking for that Amulet. The Past's as full of different times as--as +the sea is of sand. We're simply bound to hit upon the wrong time. We +might spend our lives looking for the Amulet and never see a sight of +it. Why, it's the end of September already. It's like looking for a +needle in--' + +'A bottle of hay--I know,' interrupted Robert; 'but if we don't go on +doing that, what ARE we to do?' + +'That's just it,' said Cyril in mysterious accents. 'Oh, BOTHER!' + +Old Nurse had come in with the tray of knives, forks, and glasses, +and was getting the tablecloth and table-napkins out of the chiffonier +drawer. + +'It's always meal-times just when you come to anything interesting.' + +'And a nice interesting handful YOU'D be, Master Cyril,' said old Nurse, +'if I wasn't to bring your meals up to time. Don't you begin grumbling +now, fear you get something to grumble AT.' + +'I wasn't grumbling,' said Cyril quite untruly; 'but it does always +happen like that.' + +'You deserve to HAVE something happen,' said old Nurse. 'Slave, slave, +slave for you day and night, and never a word of thanks. ...' + +'Why, you do everything beautifully,' said Anthea. + +'It's the first time any of you's troubled to say so, anyhow,' said +Nurse shortly. + +'What's the use of SAYING?' inquired Robert. 'We EAT our meals fast +enough, and almost always two helps. THAT ought to show you!' + +'Ah!' said old Nurse, going round the table and putting the knives and +forks in their places; 'you're a man all over, Master Robert. There was +my poor Green, all the years he lived with me I never could get more +out of him than "It's all right!" when I asked him if he'd fancied his +dinner. And yet, when he lay a-dying, his last words to me was, "Maria, +you was always a good cook!"' She ended with a trembling voice. + +'And so you are,' cried Anthea, and she and Jane instantly hugged her. + +When she had gone out of the room Anthea said-- + +'I know exactly how she feels. Now, look here! Let's do a penance to +show we're sorry we didn't think about telling her before what nice +cooking she does, and what a dear she is.' + +'Penances are silly,' said Robert. + +'Not if the penance is something to please someone else. I didn't mean +old peas and hair shirts and sleeping on the stones. I mean we'll make +her a sorry-present,' explained Anthea. 'Look here! I vote Cyril doesn't +tell us his idea until we've done something for old Nurse. It's worse +for us than him,' she added hastily, 'because he knows what it is and we +don't. Do you all agree?' + +The others would have been ashamed not to agree, so they did. It was not +till quite near the end of dinner--mutton fritters and blackberry and +apple pie--that out of the earnest talk of the four came an idea that +pleased everybody and would, they hoped, please Nurse. + +Cyril and Robert went out with the taste of apple still in their mouths +and the purple of blackberries on their lips--and, in the case of +Robert, on the wristband as well--and bought a big sheet of cardboard at +the stationers. Then at the plumber's shop, that has tubes and pipes +and taps and gas-fittings in the window, they bought a pane of glass the +same size as the cardboard. The man cut it with a very interesting tool +that had a bit of diamond at the end, and he gave them, out of his own +free generousness, a large piece of putty and a small piece of glue. + +While they were out the girls had floated four photographs of the four +children off their cards in hot water. These were now stuck in a row +along the top of the cardboard. Cyril put the glue to melt in a jampot, +and put the jampot in a saucepan and saucepan on the fire, while Robert +painted a wreath of poppies round the photographs. He painted rather +well and very quickly, and poppies are easy to do if you've once been +shown how. Then Anthea drew some printed letters and Jane coloured them. +The words were: + + 'With all our loves to shew + We like the thigs to eat.' + +And when the painting was dry they all signed their names at the bottom +and put the glass on, and glued brown paper round the edge and over the +back, and put two loops of tape to hang it up by. + +Of course everyone saw when too late that there were not enough letters +in 'things', so the missing 'n' was put in. It was impossible, of +course, to do the whole thing over again for just one letter. + +'There!' said Anthea, placing it carefully, face up, under the sofa. +'It'll be hours before the glue's dry. Now, Squirrel, fire ahead!' + +'Well, then,' said Cyril in a great hurry, rubbing at his gluey hands +with his pocket handkerchief. 'What I mean to say is this.' + +There was a long pause. + +'Well,' said Robert at last, 'WHAT is it that you mean to say?' + +'It's like this,' said Cyril, and again stopped short. + +'Like WHAT?' asked Jane. + +'How can I tell you if you will all keep on interrupting?' said Cyril +sharply. + +So no one said any more, and with wrinkled frowns he arranged his ideas. + +'Look here,' he said, 'what I really mean is--we can remember now what +we did when we went to look for the Amulet. And if we'd found it we +should remember that too.' + +'Rather!' said Robert. 'Only, you see we haven't.' + +'But in the future we shall have.' + +'Shall we, though?' said Jane. + +'Yes--unless we've been made fools of by the Psammead. So then, where we +want to go to is where we shall remember about where we did find it.' + +'I see,' said Robert, but he didn't. + +'_I_ don't,' said Anthea, who did, very nearly. 'Say it again, Squirrel, +and very slowly.' + +'If,' said Cyril, very slowly indeed, 'we go into the future--after +we've found the Amulet--' + +'But we've got to find it first,' said Jane. + +'Hush!' said Anthea. + +'There will be a future,' said Cyril, driven to greater clearness by the +blank faces of the other three, 'there will be a time AFTER we've found +it. Let's go into THAT time--and then we shall remember HOW we found it. +And then we can go back and do the finding really.' + +'I see,' said Robert, and this time he did, and I hope YOU do. + +'Yes,' said Anthea. 'Oh, Squirrel, how clever of you!' + +'But will the Amulet work both ways?' inquired Robert. + +'It ought to,' said Cyril, 'if time's only a thingummy of whatsitsname. +Anyway we might try.' + +'Let's put on our best things, then,' urged Jane. 'You know what people +say about progress and the world growing better and brighter. I expect +people will be awfully smart in the future.' + +'All right,' said Anthea, 'we should have to wash anyway, I'm all thick +with glue.' + +When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up. + +'We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we've found it,' +said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They walked through the big +arch of the charm straight into the British Museum. + +They knew it at once, and there, right in front of them, under a glass +case, was the Amulet--their own half of it, as well as the other half +they had never been able to find--and the two were joined by a pin of +red stone that formed a hinge. + +'Oh, glorious!' cried Robert. 'Here it is!' + +'Yes,' said Cyril, very gloomily, 'here it is. But we can't get it out.' + +'No,' said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of Babylon had +found it to get anything out of the glass cases in the Museum--except by +Psammead magic, and then she hadn't been able to take anything away with +her; 'no--but we remember where we got it, and we can--' + +'Oh, DO we?' interrupted Cyril bitterly, 'do YOU remember where we got +it?' + +'No,' said Robert, 'I don't exactly, now I come to think of it.' + +Nor did any of the others! + +'But WHY can't we?' said Jane. + +'Oh, _I_ don't know,' Cyril's tone was impatient, 'some silly old +enchanted rule I suppose. I wish people would teach you magic at school +like they do sums--or instead of. It would be some use having an Amulet +then.' + +'I wonder how far we are in the future,' said Anthea; the Museum looks +just the same, only lighter and brighter, somehow.' + +'Let's go back and try the Past again,' said Robert. + +'Perhaps the Museum people could tell us how we got it,' said Anthea +with sudden hope. There was no one in the room, but in the next gallery, +where the Assyrian things are and still were, they found a kind, stout +man in a loose, blue gown, and stockinged legs. + +'Oh, they've got a new uniform, how pretty!' said Jane. + +When they asked him their question he showed them a label on the case. +It said, 'From the collection of--.' A name followed, and it was the +name of the learned gentleman who, among themselves, and to his face +when he had been with them at the other side of the Amulet, they had +called Jimmy. + +'THAT'S not much good,' said Cyril, 'thank you.' + +'How is it you're not at school?' asked the kind man in blue. 'Not +expelled for long I hope?' + +'We're not expelled at all,' said Cyril rather warmly. + +'Well, I shouldn't do it again, if I were you,' said the man, and +they could see he did not believe them. There is no company so little +pleasing as that of people who do not believe you. + +'Thank you for showing us the label,' said Cyril. And they came away. + +As they came through the doors of the Museum they blinked at the sudden +glory of sunlight and blue sky. The houses opposite the Museum were +gone. Instead there was a big garden, with trees and flowers and smooth +green lawns, and not a single notice to tell you not to walk on the +grass and not to destroy the trees and shrubs and not to pick the +flowers. There were comfortable seats all about, and arbours covered +with roses, and long, trellised walks, also rose-covered. Whispering, +splashing fountains fell into full white marble basins, white statues +gleamed among the leaves, and the pigeons that swept about among the +branches or pecked on the smooth, soft gravel were not black and tumbled +like the Museum pigeons are now, but bright and clean and sleek as birds +of new silver. A good many people were sitting on the seats, and on the +grass babies were rolling and kicking and playing--with very little on +indeed. Men, as well as women, seemed to be in charge of the babies and +were playing with them. + + +'It's like a lovely picture,' said Anthea, and it was. For the people's +clothes were of bright, soft colours and all beautifully and very simply +made. No one seemed to have any hats or bonnets, but there were a great +many Japanese-looking sunshades. And among the trees were hung lamps of +coloured glass. + +'I expect they light those in the evening,' said Jane. 'I do wish we +lived in the future!' + +They walked down the path, and as they went the people on the benches +looked at the four children very curiously, but not rudely or unkindly. +The children, in their turn, looked--I hope they did not stare--at the +faces of these people in the beautiful soft clothes. Those faces were +worth looking at. Not that they were all handsome, though even in the +matter of handsomeness they had the advantage of any set of people the +children had ever seen. But it was the expression of their faces that +made them worth looking at. The children could not tell at first what it +was. + +'I know,' said Anthea suddenly. 'They're not worried; that's what it +is.' + +And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no +one seemed to be anxious, or fretted, and though some did seem to be +sad, not a single one looked worried. + +But though the people looked kind everyone looked so interested in the +children that they began to feel a little shy and turned out of the big +main path into a narrow little one that wound among trees and shrubs and +mossy, dripping springs. + +It was here, in a deep, shadowed cleft between tall cypresses, that they +found the expelled little boy. He was lying face downward on the mossy +turf, and the peculiar shaking of his shoulders was a thing they had +seen, more than once, in each other. So Anthea kneeled down by him and +said-- + +'What's the matter?' + +'I'm expelled from school,' said the boy between his sobs. + +This was serious. People are not expelled for light offences. + +'Do you mind telling us what you'd done?' + +'I--I tore up a sheet of paper and threw it about in the playground,' +said the child, in the tone of one confessing an unutterable baseness. +'You won't talk to me any more now you know that,' he added without +looking up. + +'Was that all?' asked Anthea. + +'It's about enough,' said the child; 'and I'm expelled for the whole +day!' + +'I don't quite understand,' said Anthea, gently. The boy lifted his +face, rolled over, and sat up. + +'Why, whoever on earth are you?' he said. + +'We're strangers from a far country,' said Anthea. 'In our country it's +not a crime to leave a bit of paper about.' + +'It is here,' said the child. 'If grown-ups do it they're fined. When we +do it we're expelled for the whole day.' + +'Well, but,' said Robert, 'that just means a day's holiday.' + +'You MUST come from a long way off,' said the little boy. 'A holiday's +when you all have play and treats and jolliness, all of you together. +On your expelled days no one'll speak to you. Everyone sees you're an +Expelleder or you'd be in school.' + +'Suppose you were ill?' + +'Nobody is--hardly. If they are, of course they wear the badge, and +everyone is kind to you. I know a boy that stole his sister's illness +badge and wore it when he was expelled for a day. HE got expelled for a +week for that. It must be awful not to go to school for a week.' + +'Do you LIKE school, then?' asked Robert incredulously. + +'Of course I do. It's the loveliest place there is. I chose railways for +my special subject this year, there are such splendid models and things, +and now I shall be all behind because of that torn-up paper.' + +'You choose your own subject?' asked Cyril. + +'Yes, of course. Where DID you come from? Don't you know ANYTHING?' + +'No,' said Jane definitely; 'so you'd better tell us.' + +'Well, on Midsummer Day school breaks up and everything's decorated with +flowers, and you choose your special subject for next year. Of course +you have to stick to it for a year at least. Then there are all your +other subjects, of course, reading, and painting, and the rules of +Citizenship.' + +'Good gracious!' said Anthea. + +'Look here,' said the child, jumping up, 'it's nearly four. The +expelledness only lasts till then. Come home with me. Mother will tell +you all about everything.' + +'Will your mother like you taking home strange children?' asked Anthea. + +'I don't understand,' said the child, settling his leather belt over his +honey-coloured smock and stepping out with hard little bare feet. 'Come +on.' + +So they went. + +The streets were wide and hard and very clean. There were no horses, but +a sort of motor carriage that made no noise. The Thames flowed between +green banks, and there were trees at the edge, and people sat under +them, fishing, for the stream was clear as crystal. Everywhere there +were green trees and there was no smoke. The houses were set in what +seemed like one green garden. + +The little boy brought them to a house, and at the window was a good, +bright mother-face. The little boy rushed in, and through the window +they could see him hugging his mother, then his eager lips moving and +his quick hands pointing. + +A lady in soft green clothes came out, spoke kindly to them, and took +them into the oddest house they had ever seen. It was very bare, there +were no ornaments, and yet every single thing was beautiful, from +the dresser with its rows of bright china, to the thick squares of +Eastern-looking carpet on the floors. I can't describe that house; I +haven't the time. And I haven't heart either, when I think how different +it was from our houses. The lady took them all over it. The oddest thing +of all was the big room in the middle. It had padded walls and a soft, +thick carpet, and all the chairs and tables were padded. There wasn't a +single thing in it that anyone could hurt itself with. + +'What ever's this for?--lunatics?' asked Cyril. + +The lady looked very shocked. + +'No! It's for the children, of course,' she said. 'Don't tell me that in +your country there are no children's rooms.' + +'There are nurseries,' said Anthea doubtfully, 'but the furniture's all +cornery and hard, like other rooms.' + +'How shocking!' said the lady;'you must be VERY much behind the times in +your country! Why, the children are more than half of the people; it's +not much to have one room where they can have a good time and not hurt +themselves.' + +'But there's no fireplace,' said Anthea. + +'Hot-air pipes, of course,' said the lady. 'Why, how could you have a +fire in a nursery? A child might get burned.' + +'In our country,' said Robert suddenly, 'more than 3,000 children are +burned to death every year. Father told me,' he added, as if apologizing +for this piece of information, 'once when I'd been playing with fire.' + +The lady turned quite pale. + +'What a frightful place you must live in!' she said. 'What's all the +furniture padded for?' Anthea asked, hastily turning the subject. + +'Why, you couldn't have little tots of two or three running about in +rooms where the things were hard and sharp! They might hurt themselves.' + +Robert fingered the scar on his forehead where he had hit it against the +nursery fender when he was little. + +'But does everyone have rooms like this, poor people and all?' asked +Anthea. + +'There's a room like this wherever there's a child, of course,' said the +lady. 'How refreshingly ignorant you are!--no, I don't mean ignorant, +my dear. Of course, you're awfully well up in ancient History. But I see +you haven't done your Duties of Citizenship Course yet.' + +'But beggars, and people like that?' persisted Anthea 'and tramps and +people who haven't any homes?' + +'People who haven't any homes?' repeated the lady. 'I really DON'T +understand what you're talking about.' + +'It's all different in our country,' said Cyril carefully; and I have +read it used to be different in London. Usedn't people to have no homes +and beg because they were hungry? And wasn't London very black and +dirty once upon a time? And the Thames all muddy and filthy? And narrow +streets, and--' + +'You must have been reading very old-fashioned books,' said the lady. +'Why, all that was in the dark ages! My husband can tell you more about +it than I can. He took Ancient History as one of his special subjects.' + +'I haven't seen any working people,' said Anthea. + +'Why, we're all working people,' said the lady; 'at least my husband's a +carpenter.' + +'Good gracious!' said Anthea; 'but you're a lady!' + +'Ah,' said the lady, 'that quaint old word! Well, my husband WILL enjoy +a talk with you. In the dark ages everyone was allowed to have a smoky +chimney, and those nasty horses all over the streets, and all sorts of +rubbish thrown into the Thames. And, of course, the sufferings of the +people will hardly bear thinking of. It's very learned of you to know it +all. Did you make Ancient History your special subject?' + +'Not exactly,' said Cyril, rather uneasily. 'What is the Duties of +Citizenship Course about?' + +'Don't you REALLY know? Aren't you pretending--just for fun? Really not? +Well, that course teaches you how to be a good citizen, what you must +do and what you mayn't do, so as to do your full share of the work of +making your town a beautiful and happy place for people to live in. +There's a quite simple little thing they teach the tiny children. How +does it go...? + + 'I must not steal and I must learn, + Nothing is mine that I do not earn. + I must try in work and play + To make things beautiful every day. + I must be kind to everyone, + And never let cruel things be done. + I must be brave, and I must try + When I am hurt never to cry, + And always laugh as much as I can, + And be glad that I'm going to be a man + To work for my living and help the rest + And never do less than my very best.' + +'That's very easy,' said Jane. '_I_ could remember that.' + +'That's only the very beginning, of course,' said the lady; 'there are +heaps more rhymes. There's the one beginning-- + + 'I must not litter the beautiful street + With bits of paper or things to eat; + I must not pick the public flowers, + They are not MINE, but they are OURS.' + +'And "things to eat" reminds me--are you hungry? Wells, run and get a +tray of nice things.' + +'Why do you call him "Wells"?' asked Robert, as the boy ran off. + +'It's after the great reformer--surely you've heard of HIM? He lived in +the dark ages, and he saw that what you ought to do is to find out what +you want and then try to get it. Up to then people had always tried +to tinker up what they'd got. We've got a great many of the things he +thought of. Then "Wells" means springs of clear water. It's a nice name, +don't you think?' + +Here Wells returned with strawberries and cakes and lemonade on a tray, +and everybody ate and enjoyed. + +'Now, Wells,' said the lady, 'run off or you'll be late and not meet +your Daddy.' + +Wells kissed her, waved to the others, and went. + +'Look here,' said Anthea suddenly, 'would you like to come to OUR +country, and see what it's like? It wouldn't take you a minute.' + +The lady laughed. But Jane held up the charm and said the word. + +'What a splendid conjuring trick!' cried the lady, enchanted with the +beautiful, growing arch. + +'Go through,' said Anthea. + +The lady went, laughing. But she did not laugh when she found herself, +suddenly, in the dining-room at Fitzroy Street. + +'Oh, what a HORRIBLE trick!' she cried. 'What a hateful, dark, ugly +place!' + +She ran to the window and looked out. The sky was grey, the street was +foggy, a dismal organ-grinder was standing opposite the door, a beggar +and a man who sold matches were quarrelling at the edge of the pavement +on whose greasy black surface people hurried along, hastening to get to +the shelter of their houses. + +'Oh, look at their faces, their horrible faces!' she cried. 'What's the +matter with them all?' + +'They're poor people, that's all,' said Robert. + +'But it's NOT all! They're ill, they're unhappy, they're wicked! Oh, +do stop it, there's dear children. It's very, very clever. Some sort of +magic-lantern trick, I suppose, like I've read of. But DO stop it. Oh! +their poor, tired, miserable, wicked faces!' + +The tears were in her eyes. Anthea signed to Jane. The arch grew, they +spoke the words, and pushed the lady through it into her own time and +place, where London is clean and beautiful, and the Thames runs clear +and bright, and the green trees grow, and no one is afraid, or anxious, +or in a hurry. There was a silence. Then-- + +'I'm glad we went,' said Anthea, with a deep breath. + +'I'll never throw paper about again as long as I live,' said Robert. + +'Mother always told us not to,' said Jane. + +'I would like to take up the Duties of Citizenship for a special +subject,' said Cyril. 'I wonder if Father could put me through it. I +shall ask him when he comes home.' + +'If we'd found the Amulet, Father could be home NOW,' said Anthea, 'and +Mother and The Lamb.' + +'Let's go into the future AGAIN,' suggested Jane brightly. 'Perhaps we +could remember if it wasn't such an awful way off.' + +So they did. This time they said, 'The future, where the Amulet is, not +so far away.' + +And they went through the familiar arch into a large, light room with +three windows. Facing them was the familiar mummy-case. And at a table +by the window sat the learned gentleman. They knew him at once, though +his hair was white. He was one of the faces that do not change with age. +In his hand was the Amulet--complete and perfect. + +He rubbed his other hand across his forehead in the way they were so +used to. + +'Dreams, dreams!' he said; 'old age is full of them!' + +'You've been in dreams with us before now,' said Robert, 'don't you +remember?' + +'I do, indeed,' said he. The room had many more books than the Fitzroy +Street room, and far more curious and wonderful Assyrian and Egyptian +objects. 'The most wonderful dreams I ever had had you in them.' + +'Where,' asked Cyril, 'did you get that thing in your hand?' + +'If you weren't just a dream,' he answered, smiling, you'd remember that +you gave it to me.' + +'But where did we get it?' Cyril asked eagerly. + +'Ah, you never would tell me that,' he said, 'You always had your little +mysteries. You dear children! What a difference you made to that old +Bloomsbury house! I wish I could dream you oftener. Now you're grown up +you're not like you used to be.' + +'Grown up?' said Anthea. + +The learned gentleman pointed to a frame with four photographs in it. + +'There you are,' he said. + +The children saw four grown-up people's portraits--two ladies, two +gentlemen--and looked on them with loathing. + +'Shall we grow up like THAT?' whispered Jane. 'How perfectly horrid!' + +'If we're ever like that, we sha'n't know it's horrid, I expect,' Anthea +with some insight whispered back. 'You see, you get used to yourself +while you're changing. It's--it's being so sudden makes it seem so +frightful now.' + +The learned gentleman was looking at them with wistful kindness. 'Don't +let me undream you just yet,' he said. There was a pause. + +'Do you remember WHEN we gave you that Amulet?' Cyril asked suddenly. + +'You know, or you would if you weren't a dream, that it was on the 3rd +December, 1905. I shall never forget THAT day.' + +'Thank you,' said Cyril, earnestly; 'oh, thank you very much.' + +'You've got a new room,' said Anthea, looking out of the window, 'and +what a lovely garden!' + +'Yes,' said he, 'I'm too old now to care even about being near the +Museum. This is a beautiful place. Do you know--I can hardly believe +you're just a dream, you do look so exactly real. Do you know...' his +voice dropped, 'I can say it to YOU, though, of course, if I said it to +anyone that wasn't a dream they'd call me mad; there was something about +that Amulet you gave me--something very mysterious.' + +'There was that,' said Robert. + +'Ah, I don't mean your pretty little childish mysteries about where you +got it. But about the thing itself. First, the wonderful dreams I used +to have, after you'd shown me the first half of it! Why, my book on +Atlantis, that I did, was the beginning of my fame and my fortune, too. +And I got it all out of a dream! And then, "Britain at the Time of the +Roman Invasion"--that was only a pamphlet, but it explained a lot of +things people hadn't understood.' + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'it would.' + +'That was the beginning. But after you'd given me the whole of the +Amulet--ah, it was generous of you!--then, somehow, I didn't need to +theorize, I seemed to KNOW about the old Egyptian civilization. And +they can't upset my theories'--he rubbed his thin hands and laughed +triumphantly--'they can't, though they've tried. Theories, they call +them, but they're more like--I don't know--more like memories. I KNOW +I'm right about the secret rites of the Temple of Amen.' + +'I'm so glad you're rich,' said Anthea. 'You weren't, you know, at +Fitzroy Street.' + +'Indeed I wasn't,' said he, 'but I am now. This beautiful house and this +lovely garden--I dig in it sometimes; you remember, you used to tell +me to take more exercise? Well, I feel I owe it all to you--and the +Amulet.' + +'I'm so glad,' said Anthea, and kissed him. He started. + +'THAT didn't feel like a dream,' he said, and his voice trembled. + +'It isn't exactly a dream,' said Anthea softly, 'it's all part of the +Amulet--it's a sort of extra special, real dream, dear Jimmy.' + +'Ah,' said he, 'when you call me that, I know I'm dreaming. My little +sister--I dream of her sometimes. But it's not real like this. Do you +remember the day I dreamed you brought me the Babylonish ring?' + +'We remember it all,' said Robert. 'Did you leave Fitzroy Street because +you were too rich for it?' + +'Oh, no!' he said reproachfully. 'You know I should never have done such +a thing as that. Of course, I left when your old Nurse died and--what's +the matter!' + +'Old Nurse DEAD?' said Anthea. 'Oh, NO!' + +'Yes, yes, it's the common lot. It's a long time ago now.' + +Jane held up the Amulet in a hand that twittered. + +'Come!' she cried, 'oh, come home! She may be dead before we get there, +and then we can't give it to her. Oh, come!' + +'Ah, don't let the dream end now!' pleaded the learned gentleman. + +'It must,' said Anthea firmly, and kissed him again. + +'When it comes to people dying,' said Robert, 'good-bye! I'm so glad +you're rich and famous and happy.' + +'DO come!' cried Jane, stamping in her agony of impatience. And they +went. Old Nurse brought in tea almost as soon as they were back in +Fitzroy Street. As she came in with the tray, the girls rushed at her +and nearly upset her and it. + +'Don't die!' cried Jane, 'oh, don't!' and Anthea cried, 'Dear, ducky, +darling old Nurse, don't die!' + +'Lord, love you!' said Nurse, 'I'm not agoin' to die yet a while, please +Heaven! Whatever on earth's the matter with the chicks?' + +'Nothing. Only don't!' + +She put the tray down and hugged the girls in turn. The boys thumped her +on the back with heartfelt affection. + +'I'm as well as ever I was in my life,' she said. 'What nonsense about +dying! You've been a sitting too long in the dusk, that's what it is. +Regular blind man's holiday. Leave go of me, while I light the gas.' + +The yellow light illuminated four pale faces. 'We do love you so,' +Anthea went on, 'and we've made you a picture to show you how we love +you. Get it out, Squirrel.' + +The glazed testimonial was dragged out from under the sofa and +displayed. + +'The glue's not dry yet,' said Cyril, 'look out!' + +'What a beauty!' cried old Nurse. 'Well, I never! And your pictures and +the beautiful writing and all. Well, I always did say your hearts was in +the right place, if a bit careless at times. Well! I never did! I don't +know as I was ever pleased better in my life.' + +She hugged them all, one after the other. And the boys did not mind it, +somehow, that day. + + +'How is it we can remember all about the future, NOW?' Anthea woke the +Psammead with laborious gentleness to put the question. 'How is it we +can remember what we saw in the future, and yet, when we WERE in the +future, we could not remember the bit of the future that was past then, +the time of finding the Amulet?' + +'Why, what a silly question!' said the Psammead, 'of course you cannot +remember what hasn't happened yet.' + +'But the FUTURE hasn't happened yet,' Anthea persisted, 'and we remember +that all right.' + +'Oh, that isn't what's happened, my good child,' said the Psammead, +rather crossly, 'that's prophetic vision. And you remember dreams, don't +you? So why not visions? You never do seem to understand the simplest +thing.' + +It went to sand again at once. + +Anthea crept down in her nightgown to give one last kiss to old Nurse, +and one last look at the beautiful testimonial hanging, by its tapes, +its glue now firmly set, in glazed glory on the wall of the kitchen. + +'Good-night, bless your loving heart,' said old Nurse, 'if only you +don't catch your deather-cold!' + + + +CHAPTER 13. THE SHIPWRECK ON THE TIN ISLANDS + +'Blue and red,' said Jane softly, 'make purple.' + +'Not always they don't,' said Cyril, 'it has to be crimson lake +and Prussian blue. If you mix Vermilion and Indigo you get the most +loathsome slate colour.' + +'Sepia's the nastiest colour in the box, I think,' said Jane, sucking +her brush. + +They were all painting. Nurse in the flush of grateful emotion, excited +by Robert's border of poppies, had presented each of the four with a +shilling paint-box, and had supplemented the gift with a pile of old +copies of the Illustrated London News. + +'Sepia,' said Cyril instructively, 'is made out of beastly cuttlefish.' + +'Purple's made out of a fish, as well as out of red and blue,' said +Robert. 'Tyrian purple was, I know.' + +'Out of lobsters?' said Jane dreamily. 'They're red when they're boiled, +and blue when they aren't. If you mixed live and dead lobsters you'd get +Tyrian purple.' + +'_I_ shouldn't like to mix anything with a live lobster,' said Anthea, +shuddering. + +'Well, there aren't any other red and blue fish,' said Jane; 'you'd have +to.' + +'I'd rather not have the purple,' said Anthea. + +'The Tyrian purple wasn't that colour when it came out of the fish, nor +yet afterwards, it wasn't,' said Robert; 'it was scarlet really, and +Roman Emperors wore it. And it wasn't any nice colour while the fish had +it. It was a yellowish-white liquid of a creamy consistency.' + +'How do you know?' asked Cyril. + +'I read it,' said Robert, with the meek pride of superior knowledge. + +'Where?' asked Cyril. + +'In print,' said Robert, still more proudly meek. + +'You think everything's true if it's printed,' said Cyril, naturally +annoyed, 'but it isn't. Father said so. Quite a lot of lies get printed, +especially in newspapers.' + +'You see, as it happens,' said Robert, in what was really a rather +annoying tone, 'it wasn't a newspaper, it was in a book.' + +'How sweet Chinese white is!' said Jane, dreamily sucking her brush +again. + +'I don't believe it,' said Cyril to Robert. + +'Have a suck yourself,' suggested Robert. + +'I don't mean about the Chinese white. I mean about the cream fish +turning purple and--' + +'Oh!' cried Anthea, jumping up very quickly, 'I'm tired of painting. +Let's go somewhere by Amulet. I say let's let IT choose.' + +Cyril and Robert agreed that this was an idea. Jane consented to stop +painting because, as she said, Chinese white, though certainly sweet, +gives you a queer feeling in the back of the throat if you paint with it +too long. + +The Amulet was held up. 'Take us somewhere,' said Jane, 'anywhere you +like in the Past--but somewhere where you are.' Then she said the word. + +Next moment everyone felt a queer rocking and swaying--something like +what you feel when you go out in a fishing boat. And that was not +wonderful, when you come to think of it, for it was in a boat that they +found themselves. A queer boat, with high bulwarks pierced with holes +for oars to go through. There was a high seat for the steersman, and +the prow was shaped like the head of some great animal with big, staring +eyes. The boat rode at anchor in a bay, and the bay was very smooth. +The crew were dark, wiry fellows with black beards and hair. They had no +clothes except a tunic from waist to knee, and round caps with knobs +on the top. They were very busy, and what they were doing was so +interesting to the children that at first they did not even wonder where +the Amulet had brought them. And the crew seemed too busy to notice the +children. They were fastening rush baskets to a long rope with a great +piece of cork at the end, and in each basket they put mussels or little +frogs. Then they cast out the rope, the baskets sank, but the cork +floated. And all about on the blue water were other boats and all the +crews of all the boats were busy with ropes and baskets and frogs and +mussels. + +'Whatever are you doing?' Jane suddenly asked a man who had rather more +clothes than the others, and seemed to be a sort of captain or overseer. +He started and stared at her, but he had seen too many strange lands to +be very much surprised at these queerly-dressed stowaways. + +'Setting lines for the dye shell-fish,' he said shortly. 'How did you +get here?' + +'A sort of magic,' said Robert carelessly. The Captain fingered an +Amulet that hung round his neck. + +'What is this place?' asked Cyril. + +'Tyre, of course,' said the man. Then he drew back and spoke in a low +voice to one of the sailors. + +'Now we shall know about your precious cream-jug fish,' said Cyril. + +'But we never SAID come to Tyre,' said Jane. + +'The Amulet heard us talking, I expect. I think it's MOST obliging of +it,' said Anthea. + +'And the Amulet's here too,' said Robert. 'We ought to be able to find +it in a little ship like this. I wonder which of them's got it.' + +'Oh--look, look!' cried Anthea suddenly. On the bare breast of one of +the sailors gleamed something red. It was the exact counterpart of their +precious half-Amulet. + +A silence, full of emotion, was broken by Jane. + +'Then we've found it!' she said. 'Oh do let's take it and go home!' + +'Easy to say "take it",' said Cyril; 'he looks very strong.' + +He did--yet not so strong as the other sailors. + +'It's odd,' said Anthea musingly, 'I do believe I've seen that man +somewhere before.' + +'He's rather like our learned gentleman,' said Robert, 'but I'll tell +you who he's much more like--' At that moment that sailor looked up. His +eyes met Robert's--and Robert and the others had no longer any doubt as +to where they had seen him before. It was Rekh-mara, the priest who +had led them to the palace of Pharaoh--and whom Jane had looked back at +through the arch, when he was counselling Pharaoh's guard to take the +jewels and fly for his life. + +Nobody was quite pleased, and nobody quite knew why. + +Jane voiced the feelings of all when she said, fingering THEIR Amulet +through the folds of her frock, 'We can go back in a minute if anything +nasty happens.' + +For the moment nothing worse happened than an offer of food--figs and +cucumbers it was, and very pleasant. + +'I see,' said the Captain, 'that you are from a far country. Since +you have honoured my boat by appearing on it, you must stay here +till morning. Then I will lead you to one of our great ones. He loves +strangers from far lands.' + +'Let's go home,' Jane whispered, 'all the frogs are drowning NOW. I +think the people here are cruel.' + +But the boys wanted to stay and see the lines taken up in the morning. + +'It's just like eel-pots and lobster-pots,' said Cyril, 'the baskets +only open from outside--I vote we stay.' + +So they stayed. + +'That's Tyre over there,' said the Captain, who was evidently trying to +be civil. He pointed to a great island rock, that rose steeply from the +sea, crowned with huge walls and towers. There was another city on the +mainland. + +'That's part of Tyre, too,' said the Captain; 'it's where the great +merchants have their pleasure-houses and gardens and farms.' + +'Look, look!' Cyril cried suddenly; 'what a lovely little ship!' + +A ship in full sail was passing swiftly through the fishing fleet. The +Captain's face changed. He frowned, and his eyes blazed with fury. + +'Insolent young barbarian!' he cried. 'Do you call the ships of Tyre +LITTLE? None greater sail the seas. That ship has been on a three years' +voyage. She is known in all the great trading ports from here to the +Tin Islands. She comes back rich and glorious. Her very anchor is of +silver.' + +'I'm sure we beg your pardon,' said Anthea hastily. 'In our country we +say "little" for a pet name. Your wife might call you her dear little +husband, you know.' + +'I should like to catch her at it,' growled the Captain, but he stopped +scowling. + +'It's a rich trade,' he went on. 'For cloth ONCE dipped, second-best +glass, and the rough images our young artists carve for practice, the +barbarian King in Tessos lets us work the silver mines. We get so much +silver there that we leave them our iron anchors and come back with +silver ones.' + +'How splendid!' said Robert. 'Do go on. What's cloth once dipped?' + +'You MUST be barbarians from the outer darkness,' said the Captain +scornfully. 'All wealthy nations know that our finest stuffs are twice +dyed--dibaptha. They're only for the robes of kings and priests and +princes.' + +'What do the rich merchants wear,' asked Jane, with interest, 'in the +pleasure-houses?' + +'They wear the dibaptha. OUR merchants ARE princes,' scowled the +skipper. + +'Oh, don't be cross, we do so like hearing about things. We want to know +ALL about the dyeing,' said Anthea cordially. + +'Oh, you do, do you?' growled the man. 'So that's what you're here for? +Well, you won't get the secrets of the dye trade out of ME.' + +He went away, and everyone felt snubbed and uncomfortable. And all the +time the long, narrow eyes of the Egyptian were watching, watching. They +felt as though he was watching them through the darkness, when they lay +down to sleep on a pile of cloaks. + +Next morning the baskets were drawn up full of what looked like whelk +shells. + +The children were rather in the way, but they made themselves as small +as they could. While the skipper was at the other end of the boat they +did ask one question of a sailor, whose face was a little less unkind +than the others. + +'Yes,' he answered, 'this is the dye-fish. It's a sort of murex--and +there's another kind that they catch at Sidon and then, of course, +there's the kind that's used for the dibaptha. But that's quite +different. It's--' + +'Hold your tongue!' shouted the skipper. And the man held it. + +The laden boat was rowed slowly round the end of the island, and was +made fast in one of the two great harbours that lay inside a long +breakwater. The harbour was full of all sorts of ships, so that +Cyril and Robert enjoyed themselves much more than their sisters. The +breakwater and the quays were heaped with bales and baskets, and crowded +with slaves and sailors. Farther along some men were practising diving. + +'That's jolly good,' said Robert, as a naked brown body cleft the water. + +'I should think so,' said the skipper. 'The pearl-divers of Persia are +not more skilful. Why, we've got a fresh-water spring that comes out at +the bottom of the sea. Our divers dive down and bring up the fresh water +in skin bottles! Can your barbarian divers do as much?' + +'I suppose not,' said Robert, and put away a wild desire to explain +to the Captain the English system of waterworks, pipes, taps, and the +intricacies of the plumbers' trade. + +As they neared the quay the skipper made a hasty toilet. He did his +hair, combed his beard, put on a garment like a jersey with short +sleeves, an embroidered belt, a necklace of beads, and a big signet +ring. + +'Now,' said he, 'I'm fit to be seen. Come along?' + +'Where to?' said Jane cautiously. + +'To Pheles, the great sea-captain, said the skipper, 'the man I told you +of, who loves barbarians.' + +Then Rekh-mara came forward, and, for the first time, spoke. + +'I have known these children in another land,' he said. 'You know my +powers of magic. It was my magic that brought these barbarians to your +boat. And you know how they will profit you. I read your thoughts. Let +me come with you and see the end of them, and then I will work the spell +I promised you in return for the little experience you have so kindly +given me on your boat.' + +The skipper looked at the Egyptian with some disfavour. + +'So it was YOUR doing,' he said. 'I might have guessed it. Well, come +on.' + +So he came, and the girls wished he hadn't. But Robert whispered-- + +'Nonsense--as long as he's with us we've got some chance of the Amulet. +We can always fly if anything goes wrong.' + +The morning was so fresh and bright; their breakfast had been so good +and so unusual; they had actually seen the Amulet round the Egyptian's +neck. One or two, or all these things, suddenly raised the children's +spirits. They went off quite cheerfully through the city gate--it was +not arched, but roofed over with a great flat stone--and so through the +street, which smelt horribly of fish and garlic and a thousand other +things even less agreeable. But far worse than the street scents was the +scent of the factory, where the skipper called in to sell his night's +catch. I wish I could tell you all about that factory, but I haven't +time, and perhaps after all you aren't interested in dyeing works. I +will only mention that Robert was triumphantly proved to be right. The +dye WAS a yellowish-white liquid of a creamy consistency, and it smelt +more strongly of garlic than garlic itself does. + +While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works the +Egyptian came close to the children, and said, suddenly and softly-- + +'Trust me.' + +'I wish we could,' said Anthea. + +'You feel,' said the Egyptian, 'that I want your Amulet. That makes you +distrust me.' + +'Yes,' said Cyril bluntly. + +'But you also, you want my Amulet, and I am trusting you.' + +'There's something in that,' said Robert. + +'We have the two halves of the Amulet,' said the Priest, 'but not yet +the pin that joined them. Our only chance of getting that is to remain +together. Once part these two halves and they may never be found in the +same time and place. Be wise. Our interests are the same.' + +Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him the +dye-master. His hair and beard were curled like the men's in Babylon, +and he was dressed like the skipper, but with added grandeur of gold +and embroidery. He had necklaces of beads and silver, and a glass amulet +with a man's face, very like his own, set between two bull's heads, as +well as gold and silver bracelets and armlets. He looked keenly at the +children. Then he said-- + +'My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He's at his garden +house--unless he's hunting wild boar in the marshes. He gets frightfully +bored on shore.' + +'Ah,' said the skipper, 'he's a true-born Phoenician. "Tyre, Tyre for +ever! Oh, Tyre rules the waves!" as the old song says. I'll go at once, +and show him my young barbarians.' + +'I should,' said the dye-master. 'They are very rum, aren't they? What +frightful clothes, and what a lot of them! Observe the covering of their +feet. Hideous indeed.' + +Robert could not help thinking how easy, and at the same time pleasant, +it would be to catch hold of the dye-master's feet and tip him backward +into the great sunken vat just near him. But if he had, flight would +have had to be the next move, so he restrained his impulse. + +There was something about this Tyrian adventure that was different from +all the others. It was, somehow, calmer. And there was the undoubted +fact that the charm was there on the neck of the Egyptian. + +So they enjoyed everything to the full, the row from the Island City to +the shore, the ride on the donkeys that the skipper hired at the gate of +the mainland city, and the pleasant country--palms and figs and cedars +all about. It was like a garden--clematis, honeysuckle, and jasmine +clung about the olive and mulberry trees, and there were tulips and +gladiolus, and clumps of mandrake, which has bell-flowers that look as +though they were cut out of dark blue jewels. In the distance were the +mountains of Lebanon. The house they came to at last was rather like +a bungalow--long and low, with pillars all along the front. Cedars and +sycamores grew near it and sheltered it pleasantly. + +Everyone dismounted, and the donkeys were led away. + +'Why is this like Rosherville?' whispered Robert, and instantly supplied +the answer. + +'Because it's the place to spend a happy day.' + +'It's jolly decent of the skipper to have brought us to such a ripping +place,' said Cyril. + +'Do you know,' said Anthea, 'this feels more real than anything else +we've seen? It's like a holiday in the country at home.' + +The children were left alone in a large hall. The floor was mosaic, done +with wonderful pictures of ships and sea-beasts and fishes. Through an +open doorway they could see a pleasant courtyard with flowers. + +'I should like to spend a week here,' said Jane, 'and donkey ride every +day.' + +Everyone was feeling very jolly. Even the Egyptian looked pleasanter +than usual. And then, quite suddenly, the skipper came back with a +joyous smile. With him came the master of the house. He looked steadily +at the children and nodded twice. + +'Yes,' he said, 'my steward will pay you the price. But I shall not pay +at that high rate for the Egyptian dog.' + +The two passed on. + +'This,' said the Egyptian, 'is a pretty kettle of fish.' + +'What is?' asked all the children at once. + +'Our present position,' said Rekh-mara. 'Our seafaring friend,' he +added, 'has sold us all for slaves!' + + +A hasty council succeeded the shock of this announcement. The Priest was +allowed to take part in it. His advice was 'stay', because they were in +no danger, and the Amulet in its completeness must be somewhere near, +or, of course, they could not have come to that place at all. And after +some discussion they agreed to this. + +The children were treated more as guests than as slaves, but the +Egyptian was sent to the kitchen and made to work. + +Pheles, the master of the house, went off that very evening, by the +King's orders, to start on another voyage. And when he was gone his wife +found the children amusing company, and kept them talking and singing +and dancing till quite late. 'To distract my mind from my sorrows,' she +said. + +'I do like being a slave,' remarked Jane cheerfully, as they curled up +on the big, soft cushions that were to be their beds. + +It was black night when they were awakened, each by a hand passed softly +over its face, and a low voice that whispered-- + +'Be quiet, or all is lost.' + +So they were quiet. + +'It's me, Rekh-mara, the Priest of Amen,' said the whisperer. 'The man +who brought us has gone to sea again, and he has taken my Amulet from me +by force, and I know no magic to get it back. Is there magic for that in +the Amulet you bear?' + +Everyone was instantly awake by now. + +'We can go after him,' said Cyril, leaping up; 'but he might take OURS +as well; or he might be angry with us for following him.' + +'I'll see to THAT,' said the Egyptian in the dark. 'Hide your Amulet +well.' + +There in the deep blackness of that room in the Tyrian country house the +Amulet was once more held up and the word spoken. + +All passed through on to a ship that tossed and tumbled on a wind-blown +sea. They crouched together there till morning, and Jane and Cyril were +not at all well. When the dawn showed, dove-coloured, across the steely +waves, they stood up as well as they could for the tumbling of the ship. +Pheles, that hardy sailor and adventurer, turned quite pale when he +turned round suddenly and saw them. + +'Well!' he said, 'well, I never did!' + +'Master,' said the Egyptian, bowing low, and that was even more +difficult than standing up, 'we are here by the magic of the sacred +Amulet that hangs round your neck.' + +'I never did!' repeated Pheles. 'Well, well!' + +'What port is the ship bound for?' asked Robert, with a nautical air. + +But Pheles said, 'Are you a navigator?' Robert had to own that he was +not. + +'Then,' said Pheles, 'I don't mind telling you that we're bound for the +Tin Isles. Tyre alone knows where the Tin Isles are. It is a splendid +secret we keep from all the world. It is as great a thing to us as your +magic to you.' + +He spoke in quite a new voice, and seemed to respect both the children +and the Amulet a good deal more than he had done before. + +'The King sent you, didn't he?' said Jane. + +'Yes,' answered Pheles, 'he bade me set sail with half a score brave +gentlemen and this crew. You shall go with us, and see many wonders.' He +bowed and left them. + +'What are we going to do now?' said Robert, when Pheles had caused them +to be left along with a breakfast of dried fruits and a sort of hard +biscuit. + +'Wait till he lands in the Tin Isles,' said Rekh-mara, 'then we can +get the barbarians to help us. We will attack him by night and tear the +sacred Amulet from his accursed heathen neck,' he added, grinding his +teeth. + +'When shall we get to the Tin Isles?' asked Jane. + +'Oh--six months, perhaps, or a year,' said the Egyptian cheerfully. + +'A year of THIS?' cried Jane, and Cyril, who was still feeling far too +unwell to care about breakfast, hugged himself miserably and shuddered. +It was Robert who said-- + +'Look here, we can shorten that year. Jane, out with the Amulet! Wish +that we were where the Amulet will be when the ship is twenty miles from +the Tin Island. That'll give us time to mature our plans.' + +It was done--the work of a moment--and there they were on the same ship, +between grey northern sky and grey northern sea. The sun was setting +in a pale yellow line. It was the same ship, but it was changed, and +so were the crew. Weather-worn and dirty were the sailors, and their +clothes torn and ragged. And the children saw that, of course, though +they had skipped the nine months, the ship had had to live through them. +Pheles looked thinner, and his face was rugged and anxious. + +'Ha!' he cried, 'the charm has brought you back! I have prayed to it +daily these nine months--and now you are here? Have you no magic that +can help?' + +'What is your need?' asked the Egyptian quietly. + +'I need a great wave that shall whelm away the foreign ship that follows +us. A month ago it lay in wait for us, by the pillars of the gods, and +it follows, follows, to find out the secret of Tyre--the place of the +Tin Islands. If I could steer by night I could escape them yet, but +tonight there will be no stars.' + +'My magic will not serve you here,' said the Egyptian. + +But Robert said, 'My magic will not bring up great waves, but I can show +you how to steer without stars.' + +He took out the shilling compass, still, fortunately, in working order, +that he had bought off another boy at school for fivepence, a piece of +indiarubber, a strip of whalebone, and half a stick of red sealing-wax. + +And he showed Pheles how it worked. And Pheles wondered at the compass's +magic truth. + +'I will give it to you,' Robert said, 'in return for that charm about +your neck.' + +Pheles made no answer. He first laughed, snatched the compass from +Robert's hand, and turned away still laughing. + +'Be comforted,' the Priest whispered, 'our time will come.' + +The dusk deepened, and Pheles, crouched beside a dim lantern, steered by +the shilling compass from the Crystal Palace. + +No one ever knew how the other ship sailed, but suddenly, in the deep +night, the look-out man at the stern cried out in a terrible voice-- + +'She is close upon us!' + +'And we,' said Pheles, 'are close to the harbour.' He was silent a +moment, then suddenly he altered the ship's course, and then he stood up +and spoke. + +'Good friends and gentlemen,' he said, 'who are bound with me in this +brave venture by our King's command, the false, foreign ship is close +on our heels. If we land, they land, and only the gods know whether they +might not beat us in fight, and themselves survive to carry back the +tale of Tyre's secret island to enrich their own miserable land. Shall +this be?' + +'Never!' cried the half-dozen men near him. The slaves were rowing hard +below and could not hear his words. + +The Egyptian leaped upon him; suddenly, fiercely, as a wild beast leaps. +'Give me back my Amulet,' he cried, and caught at the charm. The chain +that held it snapped, and it lay in the Priest's hand. + +Pheles laughed, standing balanced to the leap of the ship that answered +the oarstroke. + +'This is no time for charms and mummeries,' he said. 'We've lived like +men, and we'll die like gentlemen for the honour and glory of Tyre, our +splendid city. "Tyre, Tyre for ever! It's Tyre that rules the waves." I +steer her straight for the Dragon rocks, and we go down for our city, +as brave men should. The creeping cowards who follow shall go down as +slaves--and slaves they shall be to us--when we live again. Tyre, Tyre +for ever!' + +A great shout went up, and the slaves below joined in it. + +'Quick, the Amulet,' cried Anthea, and held it up. Rekh-mara held up the +one he had snatched from Pheles. The word was spoken, and the two great +arches grew on the plunging ship in the shrieking wind under the dark +sky. From each Amulet a great and beautiful green light streamed and +shone far out over the waves. It illuminated, too, the black faces and +jagged teeth of the great rocks that lay not two ships' lengths from the +boat's peaked nose. + +'Tyre, Tyre for ever! It's Tyre that rules the waves!' the voices of the +doomed rose in a triumphant shout. The children scrambled through the +arch, and stood trembling and blinking in the Fitzroy Street parlour, +and in their ears still sounded the whistle of the wind, and the rattle +of the oars, the crash of the ships bow on the rocks, and the last shout +of the brave gentlemen-adventurers who went to their deaths singing, for +the sake of the city they loved. + + +'And so we've lost the other half of the Amulet again,' said Anthea, +when they had told the Psammead all about it. + +'Nonsense, pooh!' said the Psammead. 'That wasn't the other half. It was +the same half that you've got--the one that wasn't crushed and lost.' + +'But how could it be the same?' said Anthea gently. + +'Well, not exactly, of course. The one you've got is a good many years +older, but at any rate it's not the other one. What did you say when you +wished?' + +'I forget,' said Jane. + +'I don't,' said the Psammead. 'You said, "Take us where YOU are"--and it +did, so you see it was the same half.' + +'I see,' said Anthea. + +'But you mark my words,' the Psammead went on, 'you'll have trouble with +that Priest yet.' + +'Why, he was quite friendly,' said Anthea. + +'All the same you'd better beware of the Reverend Rekh-mara.' + +'Oh, I'm sick of the Amulet,' said Cyril, 'we shall never get it.' + +'Oh yes we shall,' said Robert. 'Don't you remember December 3rd?' + +'Jinks!' said Cyril, 'I'd forgotten that.' + +'I don't believe it,' said Jane, 'and I don't feel at all well.' + +'If I were you,' said the Psammead, 'I should not go out into the Past +again till that date. You'll find it safer not to go where you're likely +to meet that Egyptian any more just at present.' + +'Of course we'll do as you say,' said Anthea soothingly, 'though there's +something about his face that I really do like.' + +'Still, you don't want to run after him, I suppose,' snapped the +Psammead. 'You wait till the 3rd, and then see what happens.' + +Cyril and Jane were feeling far from well, Anthea was always obliging, +so Robert was overruled. And they promised. And none of them, not even +the Psammead, at all foresaw, as you no doubt do quite plainly, exactly +what it was that WOULD happen on that memorable date. + + + +CHAPTER 14. THE HEART'S DESIRE + +If I only had time I could tell you lots of things. For instance, how, +in spite of the advice of the Psammead, the four children did, one very +wet day, go through their Amulet Arch into the golden desert, and there +find the great Temple of Baalbec and meet with the Phoenix whom they +never thought to see again. And how the Phoenix did not remember them at +all until it went into a sort of prophetic trance--if that can be called +remembering. But, alas! I HAVEN'T time, so I must leave all that out +though it was a wonderfully thrilling adventure. I must leave out, too, +all about the visit of the children to the Hippodrome with the Psammead +in its travelling bag, and about how the wishes of the people round +about them were granted so suddenly and surprisingly that at last the +Psammead had to be taken hurriedly home by Anthea, who consequently +missed half the performance. Then there was the time when, Nurse having +gone to tea with a friend out Ivalunk way, they were playing 'devil in +the dark'--and in the midst of that most creepy pastime the postman's +knock frightened Jane nearly out of her life. She took in the letters, +however, and put them in the back of the hat-stand drawer, so that they +should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of them again +for weeks and weeks. + +One really good thing happened when they took the Psammead to a +magic-lantern show and lecture at the boys' school at Camden Town. The +lecture was all about our soldiers in South Africa. And the lecturer +ended up by saying, 'And I hope every boy in this room has in his heart +the seeds of courage and heroism and self-sacrifice, and I wish that +every one of you may grow up to be noble and brave and unselfish, worthy +citizens of this great Empire for whom our soldiers have freely given +their lives.' + +And, of course, this came true--which was a distinct score for Camden +Town. + +As Anthea said, it was unlucky that the lecturer said boys, because now +she and Jane would have to be noble and unselfish, if at all, without +any outside help. But Jane said, 'I daresay we are already because of +our beautiful natures. It's only boys that have to be made brave by +magic'--which nearly led to a first-class row. + +And I daresay you would like to know all about the affair of the fishing +rod, and the fish-hooks, and the cook next door--which was amusing from +some points of view, though not perhaps the cook's--but there really is +no time even for that. + +The only thing that there's time to tell about is the Adventure of +Maskelyne and Cooke's, and the Unexpected Apparition--which is also the +beginning of the end. + +It was Nurse who broke into the gloomy music of the autumn rain on the +window panes by suggesting a visit to the Egyptian Hall, England's Home +of Mystery. Though they had good, but private reasons to know that their +own particular personal mystery was of a very different brand, the +four all brightened at the idea. All children, as well as a good many +grown-ups, love conjuring. + +'It's in Piccadilly,' said old Nurse, carefully counting out the proper +number of shillings into Cyril's hand, 'not so very far down on the left +from the Circus. There's big pillars outside, something like Carter's +seed place in Holborn, as used to be Day and Martin's blacking when I +was a gell. And something like Euston Station, only not so big.' + +'Yes, I know,' said everybody. + +So they started. + +But though they walked along the left-hand side of Piccadilly they saw +no pillared building that was at all like Carter's seed warehouse or +Euston Station or England's Home of Mystery as they remembered it. + +At last they stopped a hurried lady, and asked her the way to Maskelyne +and Cooke's. + +'I don't know, I'm sure,' she said, pushing past them. 'I always shop +at the Stores.' Which just shows, as Jane said, how ignorant grown-up +people are. + +It was a policeman who at last explained to them that England's +Mysteries are now appropriately enough enacted at St George's Hall. + +So they tramped to Langham Place, and missed the first two items in +the programme. But they were in time for the most wonderful magic +appearances and disappearances, which they could hardly believe--even +with all their knowledge of a larger magic--was not really magic after +all. + +'If only the Babylonians could have seen THIS conjuring,' whispered +Cyril. 'It takes the shine out of their old conjurer, doesn't it?' + +'Hush!' said Anthea and several other members of the audience. + +Now there was a vacant seat next to Robert. And it was when all eyes +were fixed on the stage where Mr Devant was pouring out glasses of all +sorts of different things to drink, out of one kettle with one spout, +and the audience were delightedly tasting them, that Robert felt someone +in that vacant seat. He did not feel someone sit down in it. It was just +that one moment there was no one sitting there, and the next moment, +suddenly, there was someone. + +Robert turned. The someone who had suddenly filled that empty place was +Rekh-mara, the Priest of Amen! + +Though the eyes of the audience were fixed on Mr David Devant, Mr David +Devant's eyes were fixed on the audience. And it happened that his eyes +were more particularly fixed on that empty chair. So that he saw quite +plainly the sudden appearance, from nowhere, of the Egyptian Priest. + +'A jolly good trick,' he said to himself, 'and worked under my own eyes, +in my own hall. I'll find out how that's done.' He had never seen a +trick that he could not do himself if he tried. + +By this time a good many eyes in the audience had turned on the +clean-shaven, curiously-dressed figure of the Egyptian Priest. + +'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Mr Devant, rising to the occasion, 'this +is a trick I have never before performed. The empty seat, third from +the end, second row, gallery--you will now find occupied by an Ancient +Egyptian, warranted genuine.' + +He little knew how true his words were. + +And now all eyes were turned on the Priest and the children, and the +whole audience, after a moment's breathless surprise, shouted applause. +Only the lady on the other side of Rekh-mara drew back a little. She +KNEW no one had passed her, and, as she said later, over tea and cold +tongue, 'it was that sudden it made her flesh creep.' + +Rekh-mara seemed very much annoyed at the notice he was exciting. + +'Come out of this crowd,' he whispered to Robert. 'I must talk with you +apart.' + +'Oh, no,' Jane whispered. 'I did so want to see the Mascot Moth, and the +Ventriloquist.' + +'How did you get here?' was Robert's return whisper. + +'How did you get to Egypt and to Tyre?' retorted Rekh-mara. 'Come, let +us leave this crowd.' + +'There's no help for it, I suppose,' Robert shrugged angrily. But they +all got up. + +'Confederates!' said a man in the row behind. 'Now they go round to the +back and take part in the next scene.' + +'I wish we did,' said Robert. + +'Confederate yourself!' said Cyril. And so they got away, the audience +applauding to the last. + +In the vestibule of St George's Hall they disguised Rekh-mara as well as +they could, but even with Robert's hat and Cyril's Inverness cape he was +too striking a figure for foot-exercise in the London streets. It had to +be a cab, and it took the last, least money of all of them. They stopped +the cab a few doors from home, and then the girls went in and engaged +old Nurse's attention by an account of the conjuring and a fervent +entreaty for dripping-toast with their tea, leaving the front door open +so that while Nurse was talking to them the boys could creep quietly +in with Rekh-mara and smuggle him, unseen, up the stairs into their +bedroom. + +When the girls came up they found the Egyptian Priest sitting on the +side of Cyril's bed, his hands on his knees, looking like a statue of a +king. + +'Come on,' said Cyril impatiently. 'He won't begin till we're all here. +And shut the door, can't you?' + +When the door was shut the Egyptian said-- + +'My interests and yours are one.' + +'Very interesting,' said Cyril, 'and it'll be a jolly sight more +interesting if you keep following us about in a decent country with no +more clothes on than THAT!' + +'Peace,' said the Priest. 'What is this country? and what is this time?' + +'The country's England,' said Anthea, 'and the time's about 6,000 years +later than YOUR time.' + +'The Amulet, then,' said the Priest, deeply thoughtful, 'gives the power +to move to and fro in time as well as in space?' + +'That's about it,' said Cyril gruffly. 'Look here, it'll be tea-time +directly. What are we to do with you?' + +'You have one-half of the Amulet, I the other,' said Rekh-mara. 'All +that is now needed is the pin to join them.' + +'Don't you think it,' said Robert. 'The half you've got is the same half +as the one we've got.' + +'But the same thing cannot be in the same place and the same time, and +yet be not one, but twain,' said the Priest. 'See, here is my half.' He +laid it on the Marcella counterpane. 'Where is yours?' + +Jane watching the eyes of the others, unfastened the string of the +Amulet and laid it on the bed, but too far off for the Priest to seize +it, even if he had been so dishonourable. Cyril and Robert stood beside +him, ready to spring on him if one of his hands had moved but ever so +little towards the magic treasure that was theirs. But his hands did not +move, only his eyes opened very wide, and so did everyone else's for +the Amulet the Priest had now quivered and shook; and then, as steel is +drawn to the magnet, it was drawn across the white counterpane, nearer +and nearer to the Amulet, warm from the neck of Jane. And then, as one +drop of water mingles with another on a rain-wrinkled window-pane, as +one bead of quick-silver is drawn into another bead, Rekh-mara's Amulet +slipped into the other one, and, behold! there was no more but the one +Amulet! + +'Black magic!' cried Rekh-mara, and sprang forward to snatch the Amulet +that had swallowed his. But Anthea caught it up, and at the same moment +the Priest was jerked back by a rope thrown over his head. It drew, +tightened with the pull of his forward leap, and bound his elbows to his +sides. Before he had time to use his strength to free himself, Robert +had knotted the cord behind him and tied it to the bedpost. Then the +four children, overcoming the priest's wrigglings and kickings, tied his +legs with more rope. + +'I thought,' said Robert, breathing hard, and drawing the last knot +tight, 'he'd have a try for OURS, so I got the ropes out of the +box-room, so as to be ready.' + +The girls, with rather white faces, applauded his foresight. + +'Loosen these bonds!' cried Rekh-mara in fury, 'before I blast you with +the seven secret curses of Amen-Ra!' + +'We shouldn't be likely to loose them AFTER,' Robert retorted. + +'Oh, don't quarrel!' said Anthea desperately. 'Look here, he has just as +much right to the thing as we have. This,' she took up the Amulet that +had swallowed the other one, 'this has got his in it as well as being +ours. Let's go shares.' + +'Let me go!' cried the Priest, writhing. + +'Now, look here,' said Robert, 'if you make a row we can just open that +window and call the police--the guards, you know--and tell them you've +been trying to rob us. NOW will you shut up and listen to reason?' + +'I suppose so,' said Rekh-mara sulkily. + +But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered counsel had been +held in the far corner by the washhand-stand and the towel-horse, a +counsel rather long and very earnest. + +At last Anthea detached herself from the group, and went back to the +Priest. + +'Look here,' she said in her kind little voice, 'we want to be friends. +We want to help you. Let's make a treaty. Let's join together to get the +Amulet--the whole one, I mean. And then it shall belong to you as much +as to us, and we shall all get our hearts' desire.' + +'Fair words,' said the Priest, 'grow no onions.' + +'WE say, "Butter no parsnips",' Jane put in. 'But don't you see we WANT +to be fair? Only we want to bind you in the chains of honour and upright +dealing.' + +'Will you deal fairly by us?' said Robert. + +'I will,' said the Priest. 'By the sacred, secret name that is written +under the Altar of Amen-Ra, I will deal fairly by you. Will you, too, +take the oath of honourable partnership?' + +'No,' said Anthea, on the instant, and added rather rashly. 'We don't +swear in England, except in police courts, where the guards are, +you know, and you don't want to go there. But when we SAY we'll do a +thing--it's the same as an oath to us--we do it. You trust us, and we'll +trust you.' She began to unbind his legs, and the boys hastened to untie +his arms. + +When he was free he stood up, stretched his arms, and laughed. + +'Now,' he said, 'I am stronger than you and my oath is void. I have +sworn by nothing, and my oath is nothing likewise. For there IS no +secret, sacred name under the altar of Amen-Ra.' + +'Oh, yes there is!' said a voice from under the bed. Everyone +started--Rekh-mara most of all. + +Cyril stooped and pulled out the bath of sand where the Psammead slept. +'You don't know everything, though you ARE a Divine Father of the Temple +of Amen,' said the Psammead shaking itself till the sand fell tinkling +on the bath edge. 'There IS a secret, sacred name beneath the altar of +Amen-Ra. Shall I call on that name?' + +'No, no!' cried the Priest in terror. + +'No,' said Jane, too. 'Don't let's have any calling names.' + +'Besides,' said Rekh-mara, who had turned very white indeed under his +natural brownness, 'I was only going to say that though there isn't any +name under--' + +'There IS,' said the Psammead threateningly. + +'Well, even if there WASN'T, I will be bound by the wordless oath +of your strangely upright land, and having said that I will be your +friend--I will be it.' + +'Then that's all right,' said the Psammead; 'and there's the tea-bell. +What are you going to do with your distinguished partner? He can't go +down to tea like that, you know.' + +'You see we can't do anything till the 3rd of December,' said Anthea, +'that's when we are to find the whole charm. What can we do with +Rekh-mara till then?' + +'Box-room,' said Cyril briefly, 'and smuggle up his meals. It will be +rather fun.' + +'Like a fleeing Cavalier concealed from exasperated Roundheads,' said +Robert. 'Yes.' + +So Rekh-mara was taken up to the box-room and made as comfortable as +possible in a snug nook between an old nursery fender and the wreck of +a big four-poster. They gave him a big rag-bag to sit on, and an old, +moth-eaten fur coat off the nail on the door to keep him warm. And when +they had had their own tea they took him some. He did not like the tea +at all, but he liked the bread and butter, and cake that went with it. +They took it in turns to sit with him during the evening, and left him +fairly happy and quite settled for the night. + + +But when they went up in the morning with a kipper, a quarter of which +each of them had gone without at breakfast, Rekh-mara was gone! There +was the cosy corner with the rag-bag, and the moth-eaten fur coat--but +the cosy corner was empty. + +'Good riddance!' was naturally the first delightful thought in each +mind. The second was less pleasing, because everyone at once remembered +that since his Amulet had been swallowed up by theirs--which hung +once more round the neck of Jane--he could have no possible means of +returning to his Egyptian past. Therefore he must be still in England, +and probably somewhere quite near them, plotting mischief. + +The attic was searched, to prevent mistakes, but quite vainly. + +'The best thing we can do,' said Cyril, 'is to go through the half +Amulet straight away, get the whole Amulet, and come back.' + +'I don't know,' Anthea hesitated. 'Would that be quite fair? Perhaps he +isn't really a base deceiver. Perhaps something's happened to him.' + +'Happened?' said Cyril, 'not it! Besides, what COULD happen?' + +'I don't know,' said Anthea. 'Perhaps burglars came in the night, and +accidentally killed him, and took away the--all that was mortal of him, +you know--to avoid discovery.' + +'Or perhaps,' said Cyril, 'they hid the--all that was mortal, in one of +those big trunks in the box-room. SHALL WE GO BACK AND LOOK?' he added +grimly. + +'No, no!' Jane shuddered. 'Let's go and tell the Psammead and see what +it says.' + +'No,' said Anthea, 'let's ask the learned gentleman. If anything has +happened to Rekh-mara a gentleman's advice would be more useful than a +Psammead's. And the learned gentleman'll only think it's a dream, like +he always does.' + +They tapped at the door, and on the 'Come in' entered. The learned +gentleman was sitting in front of his untasted breakfast. + +Opposite him, in the easy chair, sat Rekh-mara! + +'Hush!' said the learned gentleman very earnestly, 'please, hush! or the +dream will go. I am learning... Oh, what have I not learned in the last +hour!' + +'In the grey dawn,' said the Priest, 'I left my hiding-place, and +finding myself among these treasures from my own country, I remained. I +feel more at home here somehow.' + +'Of course I know it's a dream,' said the learned gentleman feverishly, +'but, oh, ye gods! what a dream! By jove!...' + +'Call not upon the gods,' said the Priest, 'lest ye raise greater ones +than ye can control. Already,' he explained to the children, 'he and I +are as brothers, and his welfare is dear to me as my own.' + +'He has told me,' the learned gentleman began, but Robert interrupted. +This was no moment for manners. + +'Have you told him,' he asked the Priest, 'all about the Amulet?' + +'No,' said Rekh-mara. + +'Then tell him now. He is very learned. Perhaps he can tell us what to +do.' + +Rekh-mara hesitated, then told--and, oddly enough, none of the children +ever could remember afterwards what it was that he did tell. Perhaps he +used some magic to prevent their remembering. + +When he had done the learned gentleman was silent, leaning his elbow on +the table and his head on his hand. + +'Dear Jimmy,' said Anthea gently, 'don't worry about it. We are sure to +find it today, somehow.' + +'Yes,' said Rekh-mara, 'and perhaps, with it, Death.' + +'It's to bring us our hearts' desire,' said Robert. + +'Who knows,' said the Priest, 'what things undreamed-of and infinitely +desirable lie beyond the dark gates?' + +'Oh, DON'T,' said Jane, almost whimpering. + +The learned gentleman raised his head suddenly. + +'Why not,' he suggested, 'go back into the Past? At a moment when the +Amulet is unwatched. Wish to be with it, and that it shall be under your +hand.' + +It was the simplest thing in the world! And yet none of them had ever +thought of it. + +'Come,' cried Rekh-mara, leaping up. 'Come NOW!' + +'May--may I come?' the learned gentleman timidly asked. 'It's only a +dream, you know.' + +'Come, and welcome, oh brother,' Rekh-mara was beginning, but Cyril and +Robert with one voice cried, 'NO.' + +'You weren't with us in Atlantis,' Robert added, 'or you'd know better +than to let him come.' + +'Dear Jimmy,' said Anthea, 'please don't ask to come. We'll go and be +back again before you have time to know that we're gone.' + +'And he, too?' + +'We must keep together,' said Rekh-mara, 'since there is but one perfect +Amulet to which I and these children have equal claims.' + +Jane held up the Amulet--Rekh-mara went first--and they all passed +through the great arch into which the Amulet grew at the Name of Power. + +The learned gentleman saw through the arch a darkness lighted by smoky +gleams. He rubbed his eyes. And he only rubbed them for ten seconds. + + +The children and the Priest were in a small, dark chamber. A square +doorway of massive stone let in gleams of shifting light, and the sound +of many voices chanting a slow, strange hymn. They stood listening. Now +and then the chant quickened and the light grew brighter, as though fuel +had been thrown on a fire. + +'Where are we?' whispered Anthea. + +'And when?' whispered Robert. + +'This is some shrine near the beginnings of belief,' said the Egyptian +shivering. 'Take the Amulet and come away. It is cold here in the +morning of the world.' + +And then Jane felt that her hand was on a slab or table of stone, and, +under her hand, something that felt like the charm that had so long hung +round her neck, only it was thicker. Twice as thick. + +'It's HERE!' she said, 'I've got it!' And she hardly knew the sound of +her own voice. + +'Come away,' repeated Rekh-mara. + +'I wish we could see more of this Temple,' said Robert resistingly. + +'Come away,' the Priest urged, 'there is death all about, and strong +magic. Listen.' + +The chanting voices seemed to have grown louder and fiercer, and light +stronger. + +'They are coming!' cried Rekh-mara. 'Quick, quick, the Amulet!' + +Jane held it up. + + +'What a long time you've been rubbing your eyes!' said Anthea; 'don't +you see we've got back?' The learned gentleman merely stared at her. + +'Miss Anthea--Miss Jane!' It was Nurse's voice, very much higher and +squeaky and more exalted than usual. + +'Oh, bother!' said everyone. Cyril adding, 'You just go on with the +dream for a sec, Mr Jimmy, we'll be back directly. Nurse'll come up if +we don't. SHE wouldn't think Rekh-mara was a dream.' + +Then they went down. Nurse was in the hall, an orange envelope in one +hand, and a pink paper in the other. + +'Your Pa and Ma's come home. "Reach London 11.15. Prepare rooms as +directed in letter", and signed in their two names.' + +'Oh, hooray! hooray! hooray!' shouted the boys and Jane. But Anthea +could not shout, she was nearer crying. + +'Oh,' she said almost in a whisper, 'then it WAS true. And we HAVE got +our hearts' desire.' + +'But I don't understand about the letter,' Nurse was saying. 'I haven't +HAD no letter.' + +'OH!' said Jane in a queer voice, 'I wonder whether it was one of +those... they came that night--you know, when we were playing "devil +in the dark"--and I put them in the hat-stand drawer, behind the +clothes-brushes and'--she pulled out the drawer as she spoke--'and here +they are!' + +There was a letter for Nurse and one for the children. The letters told +how Father had done being a war-correspondent and was coming home; and +how Mother and The Lamb were going to meet him in Italy and all come +home together; and how The Lamb and Mother were quite well; and how +a telegram would be sent to tell the day and the hour of their +home-coming. + +'Mercy me!' said old Nurse. 'I declare if it's not too bad of You, Miss +Jane. I shall have a nice to-do getting things straight for your Pa and +Ma.' + +'Oh, never mind, Nurse,' said Jane, hugging her; 'isn't it just too +lovely for anything!' + +'We'll come and help you,' said Cyril. 'There's just something upstairs +we've got to settle up, and then we'll all come and help you.' + +'Get along with you,' said old Nurse, but she laughed jollily. 'Nice +help YOU'D be. I know you. And it's ten o'clock now.' + + +There was, in fact, something upstairs that they had to settle. Quite a +considerable something, too. And it took much longer than they expected. + +A hasty rush into the boys' room secured the Psammead, very sandy and +very cross. + +'It doesn't matter how cross and sandy it is though,' said Anthea, 'it +ought to be there at the final council.' + +'It'll give the learned gentleman fits, I expect,' said Robert, 'when he +sees it.' + +But it didn't. + +'The dream is growing more and more wonderful,' he exclaimed, when the +Psammead had been explained to him by Rekh-mara. 'I have dreamed this +beast before.' + +'Now,' said Robert, 'Jane has got the half Amulet and I've got the +whole. Show up, Jane.' + +Jane untied the string and laid her half Amulet on the table, littered +with dusty papers, and the clay cylinders marked all over with little +marks like the little prints of birds' little feet. Robert laid down the +whole Amulet, and Anthea gently restrained the eager hand of the learned +gentleman as it reached out yearningly towards the 'perfect specimen'. + +And then, just as before on the Marcella quilt, so now on the dusty +litter of papers and curiosities, the half Amulet quivered and shook, +and then, as steel is drawn to a magnet, it was drawn across the dusty +manuscripts, nearer and nearer to the perfect Amulet, warm from the +pocket of Robert. And then, as one drop of water mingles with another +when the panes of the window are wrinkled with rain, as one bead of +mercury is drawn into another bead, the half Amulet, that was the +children's and was also Rekh-mara's,--slipped into the whole Amulet, +and, behold! there was only one--the perfect and ultimate Charm. + +'And THAT'S all right,' said the Psammead, breaking a breathless +silence. + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'and we've got our hearts' desire. Father and Mother +and The Lamb are coming home today.' + +'But what about me?' said Rekh-mara. + +'What IS your heart's desire?' Anthea asked. + +'Great and deep learning,' said the Priest, without a moment's +hesitation. 'A learning greater and deeper than that of any man of my +land and my time. But learning too great is useless. If I go back to my +own land and my own age, who will believe my tales of what I have seen +in the future? Let me stay here, be the great knower of all that has +been, in that our time, so living to me, so old to you, about which your +learned men speculate unceasingly, and often, HE tells me, vainly.' + +'If I were you,' said the Psammead, 'I should ask the Amulet about that. +It's a dangerous thing, trying to live in a time that's not your own. +You can't breathe an air that's thousands of centuries ahead of your +lungs without feeling the effects of it, sooner or later. Prepare the +mystic circle and consult the Amulet.' + +'Oh, WHAT a dream!' cried the learned gentleman. 'Dear children, if +you love me--and I think you do, in dreams and out of them--prepare the +mystic circle and consult the Amulet!' + +They did. As once before, when the sun had shone in August splendour, +they crouched in a circle on the floor. Now the air outside was thick +and yellow with the fog that by some strange decree always attends the +Cattle Show week. And in the street costers were shouting. 'Ur Hekau +Setcheh,' Jane said the Name of Power. And instantly the light went +out, and all the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence and +a darkness, both deeper than any darkness or silence that you have ever +even dreamed of imagining. It was like being deaf or blind, only darker +and quieter even than that. + +Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a voice. The +light was too faint to see anything by, and the voice was too small +for you to hear what it said. But the light and the voice grew. And the +light was the light that no man may look on and live, and the voice was +the sweetest and most terrible voice in the world. The children cast +down their eyes. And so did everyone. + +'I speak,' said the voice. 'What is it that you would hear?' + +There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak. + +'What are we to do about Rekh-mara?' said Robert suddenly and abruptly. +'Shall he go back through the Amulet to his own time, or--' + +'No one can pass through the Amulet now,' said the beautiful, terrible +voice, 'to any land or any time. Only when it was imperfect could such +things be. But men may pass through the perfect charm to the perfect +union, which is not of time or space.' + +'Would you be so very kind,' said Anthea tremulously, 'as to speak so +that we can understand you? The Psammead said something about Rekh-mara +not being able to live here, and if he can't get back--' She stopped, +her heart was beating desperately in her throat, as it seemed. + +'Nobody can continue to live in a land and in a time not appointed,' +said the voice of glorious sweetness. 'But a soul may live, if in that +other time and land there be found a soul so akin to it as to offer it +refuge, in the body of that land and time, that thus they two may be one +soul in one body.' + +The children exchanged discouraged glances. But the eyes of Rekh-mara +and the learned gentleman met, and were kind to each other, and promised +each other many things, secret and sacred and very beautiful. + +Anthea saw the look. 'Oh, but,' she said, without at all meaning to say +it, 'dear Jimmy's soul isn't at all like Rekh-mara's. I'm certain it +isn't. I don't want to be rude, but it ISN'T, you know. Dear Jimmy's +soul is as good as gold, and--' + +'Nothing that is not good can pass beneath the double arch of my perfect +Amulet,' said the voice. 'If both are willing, say the word of Power, +and let the two souls become one for ever and ever more.' + +'Shall I?' asked Jane. + +'Yes.' + +'Yes.' + +The voices were those of the Egyptian Priest and the learned gentleman, +and the voices were eager, alive, thrilled with hope and the desire of +great things. + +So Jane took the Amulet from Robert and held it up between the two men, +and said, for the last time, the word of Power. + +'Ur Hekau Setcheh.' + +The perfect Amulet grew into a double arch; the two arches leaned to +each other making a great A. + +'A stands for Amen,' whispered Jane; 'what he was a priest of.' + +'Hush!' breathed Anthea. + +The great double arch glowed in and through the green light that had +been there since the Name of Power had first been spoken--it glowed +with a light more bright yet more soft than the other light--a glory and +splendour and sweetness unspeakable. 'Come!' cried Rekh-mara, holding +out his hands. + +'Come!' cried the learned gentleman, and he also held out his hands. + +Each moved forward under the glowing, glorious arch of the perfect +Amulet. + +Then Rekh-mara quavered and shook, and as steel is drawn to a magnet +he was drawn, under the arch of magic, nearer and nearer to the learned +gentleman. And, as one drop of water mingles with another, when the +window-glass is rain-wrinkled, as one quick-silver bead is drawn to +another quick-silver bead, Rekh-mara, Divine Father of the Temple of +Amen-Ra, was drawn into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one +with Jimmy, the good, the beloved, the learned gentleman. + +And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone. The fog +has passed away like a dream. + +The Amulet was there--little and complete in jane's hand, and there +were the other children and the Psammead, and the learned gentleman. But +Rekh-mara--or the body of Rekh-mara--was not there any more. As for his +soul... + +'Oh, the horrid thing!' cried Robert, and put his foot on a centipede +as long as your finger, that crawled and wriggled and squirmed at the +learned gentleman's feet. + +'THAT,' said the Psammead, 'WAS the evil in the soul of Rekh-mara.' + +There was a deep silence. + +'Then Rekh-mara's HIM now?' said Jane at last. + +'All that was good in Rekh-mara,' said the Psammead. + +'HE ought to have his heart's desire, too,' said Anthea, in a sort of +stubborn gentleness. + +'HIS heart's desire,' said the Psammead, 'is the perfect Amulet you hold +in your hand. Yes--and has been ever since he first saw the broken half +of it.' + +'We've got ours,' said Anthea softly. + +'Yes,' said the Psammead--its voice was crosser than they had ever heard +it--'your parents are coming home. And what's to become of ME? I shall +be found out, and made a show of, and degraded in every possible way. I +KNOW they'll make me go into Parliament--hateful place--all mud and no +sand. That beautiful Baalbec temple in the desert! Plenty of good sand +there, and no politics! I wish I were there, safe in the Past--that I +do.' + +'I wish you were,' said the learned gentleman absently, yet polite as +ever. + +The Psammead swelled itself up, turned its long snail's eyes in one +last lingering look at Anthea--a loving look, she always said, and +thought--and--vanished. + +'Well,' said Anthea, after a silence, 'I suppose it's happy. The only +thing it ever did really care for was SAND.' + +'My dear children,' said the learned gentleman, 'I must have fallen +asleep. I've had the most extraordinary dream.' + +'I hope it was a nice one,' said Cyril with courtesy. + +'Yes.... I feel a new man after it. Absolutely a new man.' + +There was a ring at the front-door bell. The opening of a door. Voices. + +'It's THEM!' cried Robert, and a thrill ran through four hearts. + +'Here!' cried Anthea, snatching the Amulet from Jane and pressing it +into the hand of the learned gentleman. 'Here--it's yours--your very +own--a present from us, because you're Rekh-mara as well as... I mean, +because you're such a dear.' + +She hugged him briefly but fervently, and the four swept down the stairs +to the hall, where a cabman was bringing in boxes, and where, +heavily disguised in travelling cloaks and wraps, was their hearts' +desire--three-fold--Mother, Father, and The Lamb. + + +'Bless me!' said the learned gentleman, left alone, 'bless me! What a +treasure! The dear children! It must be their affection that has given +me these luminous apercus. I seem to see so many things now--things I +never saw before! The dear children! The dear, dear children!' + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of the Amulet, by E. 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Eight Thousand Years Ago +5. The Fight in the Village +6. The Way to Babylon +7. 'The Deepest Dungeon Below the Castle Moat' +8. The Queen in London +9. Atlantis +10. The Little Black Girl and Julius Caesar +11. Before Pharaoh +12. The Sorry-Present and the Expelled Little Boy +13. The Shipwreck on the Tin Islands +14. The Heart's Desire + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +THE PSAMMEAD + +There were once four children who spent their summer holidays in +a white house, happily situated between a sandpit and a chalkpit. +One day they had the good fortune to find in the sandpit a +strange creature. Its eyes were on long horns like snail's eyes, +and it could move them in and out like telescopes. It had ears +like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spider's +and covered with thick soft fur--and it had hands and feet like a +monkey's. It told the children--whose names were Cyril, Robert, +Anthea, and Jane--that it was a Psammead or sand-fairy. +(Psammead is pronounced Sammy-ad.) It was old, old, old, and its +birthday was almost at the very beginning of everything. And it +had been buried in the sand for thousands of years. But it still +kept its fairylikeness, and part of this fairylikeness was its +power to give people whatever they wished for. You know fairies +have always been able to do this. Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and +Jane now found their wishes come true; but, somehow, they never +could think of just the right things to wish for, and their +wishes sometimes turned out very oddly indeed. In the end their +unwise wishings landed them in what Robert called 'a very tight +place indeed', and the Psammead consented to help them out of it +in return for their promise never never to ask it to grant them +any more wishes, and never to tell anyone about it, because it +did not want to be bothered to give wishes to anyone ever any +more. At the moment of parting Jane said politely-- + +'I wish we were going to see you again some day.' + +And the Psammead, touched by this friendly thought, granted the +wish. The book about all this is called Five Children and It, +and it ends up in a most tiresome way by saying-- + +'The children DID see the Psammead again, but it was not in the +sandpit; it was--but I must say no more--' + +The reason that nothing more could be said was that I had not +then been able to find out exactly when and where the children +met the Psammead again. Of course I knew they would meet it, +because it was a beast of its word, and when it said a thing +would happen, that thing happened without fail. How different +from the people who tell us about what weather it is going to be +on Thursday next, in London, the South Coast, and Channel! + +The summer holidays during which the Psammead had been found and +the wishes given had been wonderful holidays in the country, and +the children had the highest hopes of just such another holiday +for the next summer. The winter holidays were beguiled by the +wonderful happenings of The Phoenix and the Carpet, and the loss +of these two treasures would have left the children in despair, +but for the splendid hope of their next holiday in the country. +The world, they felt, and indeed had some reason to feel, was +full of wonderful things--and they were really the sort of people +that wonderful things happen to. So they looked forward to the +summer holiday; but when it came everything was different, and +very, very horrid. Father had to go out to Manchuria to +telegraph news about the war to the tiresome paper he wrote +for--the Daily Bellower, or something like that, was its name. +And Mother, poor dear Mother, was away in Madeira, because she +had been very ill. And The Lamb--I mean the baby--was with her. +And Aunt Emma, who was Mother's sister, had suddenly married +Uncle Reginald, who was Father's brother, and they had gone to +China, which is much too far off for you to expect to be asked to +spend the holidays in, however fond your aunt and uncle may be of +you. So the children were left in the care of old Nurse, who +lived in Fitzroy Street, near the British Museum, and though she +was always very kind to them, and indeed spoiled them far more +than would be good for the most grown-up of us, the four children +felt perfectly wretched, and when the cab had driven off with +Father and all his boxes and guns and the sheepskin, with +blankets and the aluminium mess-kit inside it, the stoutest heart +quailed, and the girls broke down altogether, and sobbed in each +other's arms, while the boys each looked out of one of the long +gloomy windows of the parlour, and tried to pretend that no boy +would be such a muff as to cry. + +I hope you notice that they were not cowardly enough to cry till +their Father had gone; they knew he had quite enough to upset him +without that. But when he was gone everyone felt as if it had +been trying not to cry all its life, and that it must cry now, if +it died for it. So they cried. + +Tea--with shrimps and watercress--cheered them a little. The +watercress was arranged in a hedge round a fat glass salt-cellar, +a tasteful device they had never seen before. But it was not a +cheerful meal. + +After tea Anthea went up to the room that had been Father's, and +when she saw how dreadfully he wasn't there, and remembered how +every minute was taking him further and further from her, and +nearer and nearer to the guns of the Russians, she cried a little +more. Then she thought of Mother, ill and alone, and perhaps at +that very moment wanting a little girl to put eau-de-cologne on +her head, and make her sudden cups of tea, and she cried more +than ever. And then she remembered what Mother had said, the +night before she went away, about Anthea being the eldest girl, +and about trying to make the others happy, and things like that. +So she stopped crying, and thought instead. And when she had +thought as long as she could bear she washed her face and combed +her hair, and went down to the others, trying her best to look as +though crying were an exercise she had never even heard of. + +She found the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by +the efforts of Robert, who, to make the time pass, was pulling +Jane's hair--not hard, but just enough to tease. + +'Look here,' said Anthea. 'Let's have a palaver.' This word +dated from the awful day when Cyril had carelessly wished that +there were Red Indians in England--and there had been. The word +brought back memories of last summer holidays and everyone +groaned; they thought of the white house with the beautiful +tangled garden--late roses, asters, marigold, sweet mignonette, +and feathery asparagus--of the wilderness which someone had once +meant to make into an orchard, but which was now, as Father said, +'five acres of thistles haunted by the ghosts of baby +cherry-trees'. They thought of the view across the valley, where +the lime-kilns looked like Aladdin's palaces in the sunshine, and +they thought of their own sandpit, with its fringe of yellowy +grasses and pale-stringy-stalked wild flowers, and the little +holes in the cliff that were the little sand-martins' little +front doors. And they thought of the free fresh air smelling of +thyme and sweetbriar, and the scent of the wood-smoke from the +cottages in the lane--and they looked round old Nurse's stuffy +parlour, and Jane said-- + +'Oh, how different it all is!' + +It was. Old Nurse had been in the habit of letting lodgings, +till Father gave her the children to take care of. And her rooms +were furnished 'for letting'. Now it is a very odd thing that no +one ever seems to furnish a room 'for letting' in a bit the same +way as one would furnish it for living in. This room had heavy +dark red stuff curtains--the colour that blood would not make a +stain on--with coarse lace curtains inside. The carpet was +yellow, and violet, with bits of grey and brown oilcloth in odd +places. The fireplace had shavings and tinsel in it. There was +a very varnished mahogany chiffonier, or sideboard, with a lock +that wouldn't act. There were hard chairs--far too many of +them--with crochet antimacassars slipping off their seats, all of +which sloped the wrong way. The table wore a cloth of a cruel +green colour with a yellow chain-stitch pattern round it. Over +the fireplace was a looking-glass that made you look much uglier +than you really were, however plain you might be to begin with. +Then there was a mantelboard with maroon plush and wool fringe +that did not match the plush; a dreary clock like a black marble +tomb--it was silent as the grave too, for it had long since +forgotten how to tick. And there were painted glass vases that +never had any flowers in, and a painted tambourine that no one +ever played, and painted brackets with nothing on them. + + 'And maple-framed engravings of the Queen, the Houses of + Parliament, the Plains of Heaven, and of a blunt-nosed + woodman's flat return.' + +There were two books--last December's Bradshaw, and an odd volume +of Plumridge's Commentary on Thessalonians. There were--but I +cannot dwell longer on this painful picture. It was indeed, as +Jane said, very different. + +'Let's have a palaver,' said Anthea again. + +'What about?' said Cyril, yawning. + +'There's nothing to have ANYTHING about,' said Robert kicking the +leg of the table miserably. + +'I don't want to play,' said Jane, and her tone was grumpy. + +Anthea tried very hard not to be cross. She succeeded. + +'Look here,' she said, 'don't think I want to be preachy or a +beast in any way, but I want to what Father calls define the +situation. Do you agree?' + +'Fire ahead,' said Cyril without enthusiasm. + +'Well then. We all know the reason we're staying here is because +Nurse couldn't leave her house on account of the poor learned +gentleman on the top-floor. And there was no one else Father +could entrust to take care of us--and you know it's taken a lot +of money, Mother's going to Madeira to be made well.' + +Jane sniffed miserably. + +'Yes, I know,' said Anthea in a hurry, 'but don't let's think +about how horrid it all is. I mean we can't go to things that +cost a lot, but we must do SOMETHING. And I know there are heaps +of things you can see in London without paying for them, and I +thought we'd go and see them. We are all quite old now, and we +haven't got The Lamb--' + +Jane sniffed harder than before. + +'I mean no one can say "No" because of him, dear pet. And I +thought we MUST get Nurse to see how quite old we are, and let us +go out by ourselves, or else we shall never have any sort of a +time at all. And I vote we see everything there is, and let's +begin by asking Nurse to give us some bits of bread and we'll go +to St James's Park. There are ducks there, I know, we can feed +them. Only we must make Nurse let us go by ourselves.' + +'Hurrah for liberty!' said Robert, 'but she won't.' + +'Yes she will,' said Jane unexpectedly. '_I_ thought about that +this morning, and I asked Father, and he said yes; and what's +more he told old Nurse we might, only he said we must always say +where we wanted to go, and if it was right she would let us.' + +'Three cheers for thoughtful Jane,' cried Cyril, now roused at +last from his yawning despair. 'I say, let's go now.' + +So they went, old Nurse only begging them to be careful of +crossings, and to ask a policeman to assist in the more difficult +cases. But they were used to crossings, for they had lived in +Camden Town and knew the Kentish Town Road where the trams rush +up and down like mad at all hours of the day and night, and seem +as though, if anything, they would rather run over you than not. + +They had promised to be home by dark, but it was July, so dark +would be very late indeed, and long past bedtime. + +They started to walk to St James's Park, and all their pockets +were stuffed with bits of bread and the crusts of toast, to feed +the ducks with. They started, I repeat, but they never got +there. + +Between Fitzroy Street and St James's Park there are a great many +streets, and, if you go the right way you will pass a great many +shops that you cannot possibly help stopping to look at. The +children stopped to look at several with gold-lace and beads and +pictures and jewellery and dresses, and hats, and oysters and +lobsters in their windows, and their sorrow did not seem nearly +so impossible to bear as it had done in the best parlour at No. +300, Fitzroy Street. + +Presently, by some wonderful chance turn of Robert's (who had +been voted Captain because the girls thought it would be good for +him-- and indeed he thought so himself--and of course Cyril +couldn't vote against him because it would have looked like a +mean jealousy), they came into the little interesting +criss-crossy streets that held the most interesting shops of +all--the shops where live things were sold. There was one shop +window entirely filled with cages, and all sorts of beautiful +birds in them. The children were delighted till they remembered +how they had once wished for wings themselves, and had had +them--and then they felt how desperately unhappy anything with +wings must be if it is shut up in a cage and not allowed to fly. + +'It must be fairly beastly to be a bird in a cage,' said Cyril. +'Come on!' + +They went on, and Cyril tried to think out a scheme for making +his fortune as a gold-digger at Klondyke, and then buying all the +caged birds in the world and setting them free. Then they came +to a shop that sold cats, but the cats were in cages, and the +children could not help wishing someone would buy all the cats +and put them on hearthrugs, which are the proper places for cats. +And there was the dog-shop, and that was not a happy thing to +look at either, because all the dogs were chained or caged, and +all the dogs, big and little, looked at the four children with +sad wistful eyes and wagged beseeching tails as if they were +trying to say, 'Buy me! buy me! buy me! and let me go for a walk +with you; oh, do buy me, and buy my poor brothers too! Do! do! +do!' They almost said, 'Do! do! do!' plain to the ear, as they +whined; all but one big Irish terrier, and he growled when Jane +patted him. + +'Grrrrr,' he seemed to say, as he looked at them from the back +corner of his eye--'YOU won't buy me. Nobody will--ever--I shall +die chained up--and I don't know that I care how soon it is, +either!' + +I don't know that the children would have understood all this, +only once they had been in a besieged castle, so they knew how +hateful it is to be kept in when you want to get out. + +Of course they could not buy any of the dogs. They did, indeed, +ask the price of the very, very smallest, and it was sixty-five +pounds--but that was because it was a Japanese toy spaniel like +the Queen once had her portrait painted with, when she was only +Princess of Wales. But the children thought, if the smallest was +all that money, the biggest would run into thousands--so they +went on. + +And they did not stop at any more cat or dog or bird shops, but +passed them by, and at last they came to a shop that seemed as +though it only sold creatures that did not much mind where they +were--such as goldfish and white mice, and sea-anemones and other +aquarium beasts, and lizards and toads, and hedgehogs and +tortoises, and tame rabbits and guinea-pigs. And there they +stopped for a long time, and fed the guinea-pigs with bits of +bread through the cage-bars, and wondered whether it would be +possible to keep a sandy-coloured double-lop in the basement of +the house in Fitzroy Street. + +'I don't suppose old Nurse would mind VERY much,' said Jane. +'Rabbits are most awfully tame sometimes. I expect it would know +her voice and follow her all about.' + +'She'd tumble over it twenty times a day,' said Cyril; 'now a +snake--' + +'There aren't any snakes, said Robert hastily, 'and besides, I +never could cotton to snakes somehow--I wonder why.' + +'Worms are as bad,' said Anthea, 'and eels and slugs--I think +it's because we don't like things that haven't got legs.' + +'Father says snakes have got legs hidden away inside of them,' +said Robert. + +'Yes--and he says WE'VE got tails hidden away inside us--but it +doesn't either of it come to anything REALLY,' said Anthea. 'I +hate things that haven't any legs.' + +'It's worse when they have too many,' said Jane with a shudder, +'think of centipedes!' + +They stood there on the pavement, a cause of some inconvenience +to the passersby, and thus beguiled the time with conversation. +Cyril was leaning his elbow on the top of a hutch that had seemed +empty when they had inspected the whole edifice of hutches one by +one, and he was trying to reawaken the interest of a hedgehog +that had curled itself into a ball earlier in the interview, when +a small, soft voice just below his elbow said, quietly, plainly +and quite unmistakably--not in any squeak or whine that had to be +translated--but in downright common English-- + +'Buy me--do--please buy me!' + +Cyril started as though he had been pinched, and jumped a yard +away from the hutch. + +'Come back--oh, come back!' said the voice, rather louder but +still softly; 'stoop down and pretend to be tying up your +bootlace--I see it's undone, as usual.' + +Cyril mechanically obeyed. He knelt on one knee on the dry, hot +dusty pavement, peered into the darkness of the hutch and found +himself face to face with--the Psammead! + +It seemed much thinner than when he had last seen it. It was +dusty and dirty, and its fur was untidy and ragged. It had +hunched itself up into a miserable lump, and its long snail's +eyes were drawn in quite tight so that they hardly showed at all. + +'Listen,' said the Psammead, in a voice that sounded as though it +would begin to cry in a minute, 'I don't think the creature who +keeps this shop will ask a very high price for me. I've bitten +him more than once, and I've made myself look as common as I can. +He's never had a glance from my beautiful, beautiful eyes. Tell +the others I'm here--but tell them to look at some of those low, +common beasts while I'm talking to you. The creature inside +mustn't think you care much about me, or he'll put a price upon +me far, far beyond your means. I remember in the dear old days +last summer you never had much money. Oh--I never thought I +should be so glad to see you--I never did.' It sniffed, and shot +out its long snail's eyes expressly to drop a tear well away from +its fur. 'Tell the others I'm here, and then I'll tell you +exactly what to do about buying me.' Cyril tied his bootlace +into a hard knot, stood up and addressed the others in firm +tones-- + +'Look here,' he said, 'I'm not kidding--and I appeal to your +honour,' an appeal which in this family was never made in vain. +'Don't look at that hutch--look at the white rat. Now you are +not to look at that hutch whatever I say.' + +He stood in front of it to prevent mistakes. + +'Now get yourselves ready for a great surprise. In that hutch +there's an old friend of ours--DON'T look!--Yes; it's the +Psammead, the good old Psammead! it wants us to buy it. It says +you're not to look at it. Look at the white rat and count your +money! On your honour don't look!' + +The others responded nobly. They looked at the white rat till +they quite stared him out of countenance, so that he went and sat +up on his hind legs in a far corner and hid his eyes with his +front paws, and pretended he was washing his face. + +Cyril stooped again, busying himself with the other bootlace and +listened for the Psammead's further instructions. + +'Go in,' said the Psammead, 'and ask the price of lots of other +things. Then say, "What do you want for that monkey that's lost +its tail--the mangy old thing in the third hutch from the end." +Oh--don't mind MY feelings--call me a mangy monkey--I've tried +hard enough to look like one! I don't think he'll put a high +price on me--I've bitten him eleven times since I came here the +day before yesterday. If he names a bigger price than you can +afford, say you wish you had the money.' + +'But you can't give us wishes. I've promised never to have +another wish from you,' said the bewildered Cyril. + +'Don't be a silly little idiot,' said the Sand-fairy in trembling +but affectionate tones, 'but find out how much money you've got +between you, and do exactly what I tell you.' + +Cyril, pointing a stiff and unmeaning finger at the white rat, so +as to pretend that its charms alone employed his tongue, +explained matters to the others, while the Psammead hunched +itself, and bunched itself, and did its very best to make itself +look uninteresting. Then the four children filed into the shop. + +'How much do you want for that white rat?' asked Cyril. + +'Eightpence,' was the answer. + +'And the guinea-pigs?' + +'Eighteenpence to five bob, according to the breed.' + +'And the lizards?' + +'Ninepence each.' + +'And toads?' + +'Fourpence. Now look here,' said the greasy owner of all this +caged life with a sudden ferocity which made the whole party back +hurriedly on to the wainscoting of hutches with which the shop +was lined. 'Lookee here. I ain't agoin' to have you a comin' in +here a turnin' the whole place outer winder, an' prizing every +animile in the stock just for your larks, so don't think it! If +you're a buyer, BE a buyer--but I never had a customer yet as +wanted to buy mice, and lizards, and toads, and guineas all at +once. So hout you goes.' + +'Oh! wait a minute,' said the wretched Cyril, feeling how +foolishly yet well-meaningly he had carried out the Psammead's +instructions. 'Just tell me one thing. What do you want for the +mangy old monkey in the third hutch from the end?' + +The shopman only saw in this a new insult. + +'Mangy young monkey yourself,' said he; 'get along with your +blooming cheek. Hout you goes!' + +'Oh! don't be so cross,' said Jane, losing her head altogether, +'don't you see he really DOES want to know THAT!' + +'Ho! does 'e indeed,' sneered the merchant. Then he scratched +his ear suspiciously, for he was a sharp business man, and he +knew the ring of truth when he heard it. His hand was bandaged, +and three minutes before he would have been glad to sell the +'mangy old monkey' for ten shillings. Now-- 'Ho! 'e does, does +'e,' he said, 'then two pun ten's my price. He's not got his +fellow that monkey ain't, nor yet his match, not this side of the +equator, which he comes from. And the only one ever seen in +London. Ought to be in the Zoo. Two pun ten, down on the nail, +or hout you goes!' + +The children looked at each other--twenty-three shillings and +fivepence was all they had in the world, and it would have been +merely three and fivepence, but for the sovereign which Father +had given to them 'between them' at parting. 'We've only +twenty-three shillings and fivepence,' said Cyril, rattling the +money in his pocket. + +'Twenty-three farthings and somebody's own cheek,' said the +dealer, for he did not believe that Cyril had so much money. + +There was a miserable pause. Then Anthea remembered, and said-- + +'Oh! I WISH I had two pounds ten.' + +'So do I, Miss, I'm sure,' said the man with bitter politeness; +'I wish you 'ad, I'm sure!' + +Anthea's hand was on the counter, something seemed to slide under +it. She lifted it. There lay five bright half sovereigns. + +'Why, I HAVE got it after all,' she said; 'here's the money, now +let's have the Sammy,... the monkey I mean.' + +The dealer looked hard at the money, but he made haste to put it +in his pocket. + +'I only hope you come by it honest,' he said, shrugging his +shoulders. He scratched his ear again. + +'Well!' he said, 'I suppose I must let you have it, but it's +worth thribble the money, so it is--' + +He slowly led the way out to the hutch--opened the door gingerly, +and made a sudden fierce grab at the Psammead, which the Psammead +acknowledged in one last long lingering bite. + +'Here, take the brute,' said the shopman, squeezing the Psammead +so tight that he nearly choked it. 'It's bit me to the marrow, +it have.' + +The man's eyes opened as Anthea held out her arms. + +'Don't blame me if it tears your face off its bones,' he said, +and the Psammead made a leap from his dirty horny hands, and +Anthea caught it in hers, which were not very clean, certainly, +but at any rate were soft and pink, and held it kindly and +closely. + +'But you can't take it home like that,' Cyril said, 'we shall +have a crowd after us,' and indeed two errand boys and a +policeman had already collected. + +'I can't give you nothink only a paper-bag, like what we put the +tortoises in,' said the man grudgingly. + +So the whole party went into the shop, and the shopman's eyes +nearly came out of his head when, having given Anthea the largest +paper-bag he could find, he saw her hold it open, and the +Psammead carefully creep into it. 'Well!' he said, 'if that there +don't beat cockfighting! But p'raps you've met the brute afore.' + +'Yes,' said Cyril affably, 'he's an old friend of ours.' + +'If I'd a known that,' the man rejoined, 'you shouldn't a had him +under twice the money. 'Owever,' he added, as the children +disappeared, 'I ain't done so bad, seeing as I only give five bob +for the beast. But then there's the bites to take into account!' + +The children trembling in agitation and excitement, carried home +the Psammead, trembling in its paper-bag. + +When they got it home, Anthea nursed it, and stroked it, and +would have cried over it, if she hadn't remembered how it hated +to be wet. + +When it recovered enough to speak, it said-- + +'Get me sand; silver sand from the oil and colour shop. And get +me plenty.' + +They got the sand, and they put it and the Psammead in the round +bath together, and it rubbed itself, and rolled itself, and shook +itself and scraped itself, and scratched itself, and preened +itself, till it felt clean and comfy, and then it scrabbled a +hasty hole in the sand, and went to sleep in it. + +The children hid the bath under the girls' bed, and had supper. +Old Nurse had got them a lovely supper of bread and butter and +fried onions. She was full of kind and delicate thoughts. + +When Anthea woke the next morning, the Psammead was snuggling +down between her shoulder and Jane's. + +'You have saved my life,' it said. 'I know that man would have +thrown cold water on me sooner or later, and then I should have +died. I saw him wash out a guinea-pig's hutch yesterday morning. +I'm still frightfully sleepy, I think I'll go back to sand for +another nap. Wake the boys and this dormouse of a Jane, and when +you've had your breakfasts we'll have a talk.' + +'Don't YOU want any breakfast?' asked Anthea. + +'I daresay I shall pick a bit presently,' it said; 'but sand is +all I care about--it's meat and drink to me, and coals and fire +and wife and children.' With these words it clambered down by +the bedclothes and scrambled back into the bath, where they heard +it scratching itself out of sight. + +'Well!' said Anthea, 'anyhow our holidays won't be dull NOW. +We've found the Psammead again.' + +'No,' said Jane, beginning to put on her stockings. 'We shan't +be dull--but it'll be only like having a pet dog now it can't +give us wishes.' + +'Oh, don't be so discontented,' said Anthea. 'If it can't do +anything else it can tell us about Megatheriums and things.' + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +THE HALF AMULET + +Long ago--that is to say last summer--the children, finding +themselves embarrassed by some wish which the Psammead had +granted them, and which the servants had not received in a proper +spirit, had wished that the servants might not notice the gifts +which the Psammead gave. And when they parted from the Psammead +their last wish had been that they should meet it again. +Therefore they HAD met it (and it was jolly lucky for the +Psammead, as Robert pointed out). Now, of course, you see that +the Psammead's being where it was, was the consequence of one of +their wishes, and therefore was a Psammead-wish, and as such +could not be noticed by the servants. And it was soon plain that +in the Psammead's opinion old Nurse was still a servant, although +she had now a house of her own, for she never noticed the +Psammead at all. And that was as well, for she would never have +consented to allow the girls to keep an animal and a bath of sand +under their bed. + +When breakfast had been cleared away--it was a very nice +breakfast with hot rolls to it, a luxury quite out of the common +way--Anthea went and dragged out the bath, and woke the Psammead. + +It stretched and shook itself. + +'You must have bolted your breakfast most unwholesomely,' it +said, 'you can't have been five minutes over it.' + +'We've been nearly an hour,' said Anthea. 'Come--you know you +promised.' + +'Now look here,' said the Psammead, sitting back on the sand and +shooting out its long eyes suddenly, 'we'd better begin as we +mean to go on. It won't do to have any misunderstanding, so I +tell you plainly that--' + +'Oh, PLEASE,' Anthea pleaded, 'do wait till we get to the others. +They'll think it most awfully sneakish of me to talk to you +without them; do come down, there's a dear.' + +She knelt before the sand-bath and held out her arms. The +Psammead must have remembered how glad it had been to jump into +those same little arms only the day before, for it gave a little +grudging grunt, and jumped once more. + +Anthea wrapped it in her pinafore and carried it downstairs. It +was welcomed in a thrilling silence. At last Anthea said, 'Now +then!' + +'What place is this?' asked the Psammead, shooting its eyes out +and turning them slowly round. + +'It's a sitting-room, of course,' said Robert. + +'Then I don't like it,' said the Psammead. + +'Never mind,' said Anthea kindly; 'we'll take you anywhere you +like if you want us to. What was it you were going to say +upstairs when I said the others wouldn't like it if I stayed +talking to you without them?' + +It looked keenly at her, and she blushed. + +'Don't be silly,' it said sharply. 'Of course, it's quite +natural that you should like your brothers and sisters to know +exactly how good and unselfish you were.' + +'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane. 'Anthea was quite right. What +was it you were going to say when she stopped you?' + +'I'll tell you,' said the Psammead, 'since you're so anxious to +know. I was going to say this. You've saved my life--and I'm +not ungrateful--but it doesn't change your nature or mine. +You're still very ignorant, and rather silly, and I am worth a +thousand of you any day of the week.' + +'Of course you are!' Anthea was beginning but it interrupted her. + +'It's very rude to interrupt,' it said; 'what I mean is that I'm +not going to stand any nonsense, and if you think what you've +done is to give you the right to pet me or make me demean myself +by playing with you, you'll find out that what you think doesn't +matter a single penny. See? It's what _I_ think that matters.' + +'I know,' said Cyril, 'it always was, if you remember.' + +'Well,' said the Psammead, 'then that's settled. We're to be +treated as we deserve. I with respect, and all of you with--but +I don't wish to be offensive. Do you want me to tell you how I +got into that horrible den you bought me out of? Oh, I'm not +ungrateful! I haven't forgotten it and I shan't forget it.' + +'Do tell us,' said Anthea. 'I know you're awfully clever, but +even with all your cleverness, I don't believe you can possibly +know how--how respectfully we do respect you. Don't we?' + +The others all said yes--and fidgeted in their chairs. Robert +spoke the wishes of all when he said-- + +'I do wish you'd go on.' So it sat up on the green-covered table +and went on. + +'When you'd gone away,' it said, 'I went to sand for a bit, and +slept. I was tired out with all your silly wishes, and I felt as +though I hadn't really been to sand for a year.' + +'To sand?' Jane repeated. + +'Where I sleep. You go to bed. I go to sand.' + +Jane yawned; the mention of bed made her feel sleepy. + +'All right,' said the Psammead, in offended tones. 'I'm sure _I_ +don't want to tell you a long tale. A man caught me, and I bit +him. And he put me in a bag with a dead hare and a dead rabbit. +And he took me to his house and put me out of the bag into a +basket with holes that I could see through. And I bit him again. +And then he brought me to this city, which I am told is called +the Modern Babylon--though it's not a bit like the old +Babylon--and he sold me to the man you bought me from, and then I +bit them both. Now, what's your news?' + +'There's not quite so much biting in our story,' said Cyril +regretfully; 'in fact, there isn't any. Father's gone to +Manchuria, and Mother and The Lamb have gone to Madeira because +Mother was ill, and don't I just wish that they were both safe +home again.' + +Merely from habit, the Sand-fairy began to blow itself out, but +it stopped short suddenly. + +'I forgot,' it said; 'I can't give you any more wishes.' + +'No--but look here,' said Cyril, 'couldn't we call in old Nurse +and get her to say SHE wishes they were safe home. I'm sure she +does.' + +'No go,' said the Psammead. 'It's just the same as your wishing +yourself if you get some one else to wish for you. It won't +act.' + +'But it did yesterday--with the man in the shop,' said Robert. + +'Ah yes,' said the creature, 'but you didn't ASK him to wish, and +you didn't know what would happen if he did. That can't be done +again. It's played out.' + +'Then you can't help us at all,' said Jane; 'oh--I did think you +could do something; I've been thinking about it ever since we +saved your life yesterday. I thought you'd be certain to be able +to fetch back Father, even if you couldn't manage Mother.' + +And Jane began to cry. + +'Now DON'T,' said the Psammead hastily; 'you know how it always +upsets me if you cry. I can't feel safe a moment. Look here; +you must have some new kind of charm.' + +'That's easier said than done.' + +'Not a bit of it,' said the creature; 'there's one of the +strongest charms in the world not a stone's throw from where you +bought me yesterday. The man that I bit so--the first one, I +mean--went into a shop to ask how much something cost--I think he +said it was a concertina--and while he was telling the man in the +shop how much too much he wanted for it, I saw the charm in a +sort of tray, with a lot of other things. If you can only buy +THAT, you will be able to have your heart's desire.' + +The children looked at each other and then at the Psammead. Then +Cyril coughed awkwardly and took sudden courage to say what +everyone was thinking. + +'I do hope you won't be waxy,' he said; 'but it's like this: when +you used to give us our wishes they almost always got us into +some row or other, and we used to think you wouldn't have been +pleased if they hadn't. Now, about this charm--we haven't got +over and above too much tin, and if we blue it all on this charm +and it turns out to be not up to much--well--you see what I'm +driving at, don't you?' + +'I see that YOU don't see more than the length of your nose, and +THAT'S not far,' said the Psammead crossly. 'Look here, I HAD to +give you the wishes, and of course they turned out badly, in a +sort of way, because you hadn't the sense to wish for what was +good for you. But this charm's quite different. I haven't GOT +to do this for you, it's just my own generous kindness that makes +me tell you about it. So it's bound to be all right. See?' + +'Don't be cross,' said Anthea, 'Please, PLEASE don't. You see, +it's all we've got; we shan't have any more pocket-money till +Daddy comes home--unless he sends us some in a letter. But we DO +trust you. And I say all of you,' she went on, 'don't you think +it's worth spending ALL the money, if there's even the chanciest +chance of getting Father and Mother back safe NOW? Just think of +it! Oh, do let's!' + +'_I_ don't care what you do,' said the Psammead; 'I'll go back to +sand again till you've made up your minds.' + +'No, don't!' said everybody; and Jane added, 'We are quite mind +made-up--don't you see we are? Let's get our hats. Will you +come with us?' + +'Of course,' said the Psammead; 'how else would you find the +shop?' + +So everybody got its hat. The Psammead was put into a flat +bass-bag that had come from Farringdon Market with two pounds of +filleted plaice in it. Now it contained about three pounds and a +quarter of solid Psammead, and the children took it in turns to +carry it. + +'It's not half the weight of The Lamb,' Robert said, and the +girls sighed. + +The Psammead poked a wary eye out of the top of the basket every +now and then, and told the children which turnings to take. + +'How on earth do you know?' asked Robert. 'I can't think how you +do it.' + +And the Psammead said sharply, 'No--I don't suppose you can.' + +At last they came to THE shop. It had all sorts and kinds of +things in the window--concertinas, and silk handkerchiefs, china +vases and tea-cups, blue Japanese jars, pipes, swords, pistols, +lace collars, silver spoons tied up in half-dozens, and +wedding-rings in a red lacquered basin. There were officers' +epaulets and doctors' lancets. There were tea-caddies inlaid +with red turtle-shell and brass curly-wurlies, plates of +different kinds of money, and stacks of different kinds of +plates. There was a beautiful picture of a little girl washing a +dog, which Jane liked very much. And in the middle of the window +there was a dirty silver tray full of mother-of-pearl card +counters, old seals, paste buckles, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of +little dingy odds and ends. + +The Psammead put its head quite out of the fish-basket to look in +the window, when Cyril said-- + +'There's a tray there with rubbish in it.' + +And then its long snail's eyes saw something that made them +stretch out so much that they were as long and thin as new +slate-pencils. Its fur bristled thickly, and its voice was quite +hoarse with excitement as it whispered-- + +'That's it! That's it! There, under that blue and yellow +buckle, you can see a bit sticking out. It's red. Do you see?' + +'Is it that thing something like a horse-shoe?' asked Cyril. +'And red, like the common sealing-wax you do up parcels with?' +'Yes, that's it,' said the Psammead. 'Now, you do just as you +did before. Ask the price of other things. That blue buckle +would do. Then the man will get the tray out of the window. I +think you'd better be the one,' it said to Anthea. 'We'll wait +out here.' + +So the others flattened their noses against the shop window, and +presently a large, dirty, short-fingered hand with a very big +diamond ring came stretching through the green half-curtains at +the back of the shop window and took away the tray. + +They could not see what was happening in the interview between +Anthea and the Diamond Ring, and it seemed to them that she had +had time--if she had had money--to buy everything in the shop +before the moment came when she stood before them, her face +wreathed in grins, as Cyril said later, and in her hand the +charm. + +It was something like this: [Drawing omitted.] and it was made of +a red, smooth, softly shiny stone. + +'I've got it,' Anthea whispered, just opening her hand to give +the others a glimpse of it. 'Do let's get home. We can't stand +here like stuck-pigs looking at it in the street.' + +So home they went. The parlour in Fitzroy Street was a very flat +background to magic happenings. Down in the country among the +flowers and green fields anything had seemed--and indeed had +been--possible. But it was hard to believe that anything really +wonderful could happen so near the Tottenham Court Road. But the +Psammead was there--and it in itself was wonderful. And it could +talk--and it had shown them where a charm could be bought that +would make the owner of it perfectly happy. So the four children +hurried home, taking very long steps, with their chins stuck out, +and their mouths shut very tight indeed. They went so fast that +the Psammead was quite shaken about in its fish-bag, but it did +not say anything--perhaps for fear of attracting public notice. + +They got home at last, very hot indeed, and set the Psammead on +the green tablecloth. + +'Now then!' said Cyril. + +But the Psammead had to have a plate of sand fetched for it, for +it was quite faint. When it had refreshed itself a little it +said-- + +'Now then! Let me see the charm,' and Anthea laid it on the +green table-cover. The Psammead shot out his long eyes to look +at it, then it turned them reproachfully on Anthea and said-- + +'But there's only half of it here!' + +This was indeed a blow. + +'It was all there was,' said Anthea, with timid firmness. She +knew it was not her fault. 'There should be another piece,' said +the Psammead, 'and a sort of pin to fasten the two together.' + +'Isn't half any good?'--'Won't it work without the other +bit?'--'It cost seven-and-six.'--'Oh, bother, bother, +bother!'--'Don't be silly little idiots!' said everyone and the +Psammead altogether. + +Then there was a wretched silence. Cyril broke it-- + +'What shall we do?' + +'Go back to the shop and see if they haven't got the other half,' +said the Psammead. 'I'll go to sand till you come back. Cheer +up! Even the bit you've got is SOME good, but it'll be no end of +a bother if you can't find the other.' + +So Cyril went to the shop. And the Psammead to sand. And the +other three went to dinner, which was now ready. And old Nurse +was very cross that Cyril was not ready too. + +The three were watching at the windows when Cyril returned, and +even before he was near enough for them to see his face there was +something about the slouch of his shoulders and set of his +knickerbockers and the way he dragged his boots along that showed +but too plainly that his errand had been in vain. + +'Well?' they all said, hoping against hope on the front-door +step. + +'No go,' Cyril answered; 'the man said the thing was perfect. He +said it was a Roman lady's locket, and people shouldn't buy +curios if they didn't know anything about arky--something or +other, and that he never went back on a bargain, because it +wasn't business, and he expected his customers to act the same. +He was simply nasty--that's what he was, and I want my dinner.' + +It was plain that Cyril was not pleased. + +The unlikeliness of anything really interesting happening in that +parlour lay like a weight of lead on everyone's spirits. Cyril +had his dinner, and just as he was swallowing the last mouthful +of apple-pudding there was a scratch at the door. Anthea opened +it and in walked the Psammead. + +'Well,' it said, when it had heard the news, 'things might be +worse. Only you won't be surprised if you have a few adventures +before you get the other half. You want to get it, of course.' + +'Rather,' was the general reply. 'And we don't mind adventures.' + +'No,' said the Psammead, 'I seem to remember that about you. +Well, sit down and listen with all your ears. Eight, are there? +Right--I am glad you know arithmetic. Now pay attention, because +I don't intend to tell you everything twice over.' + +As the children settled themselves on the floor--it was far more +comfortable than the chairs, as well as more polite to the +Psammead, who was stroking its whiskers on the hearth-rug--a +sudden cold pain caught at Anthea's heart. Father--Mother--the +darling Lamb--all far away. Then a warm, comfortable feeling +flowed through her. The Psammead was here, and at least half a +charm, and there were to be adventures. (If you don't know what +a cold pain is, I am glad for your sakes, and I hope you never +may.) + +'Now,' said the Psammead cheerily, 'you are not particularly +nice, nor particularly clever, and you're not at all +good-looking. Still, you've saved my life--oh, when I think of +that man and his pail of water!--so I'll tell you all I know. At +least, of course I can't do that, because I know far too much. +But I'll tell you all I know about this red thing.' + +'Do! Do! Do! Do!' said everyone. + +'Well, then,' said the Psammead. 'This thing is half of an +Amulet that can do all sorts of things; it can make the corn +grow, and the waters flow, and the trees bear fruit, and the +little new beautiful babies come. (Not that babies ARE +beautiful, of course,' it broke off to say, 'but their mothers +think they are--and as long as you think a thing's true it IS +true as far as you're concerned.)' + +Robert yawned. + +The Psammead went on. + +'The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people +unhappy--jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, +greediness, selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called +them when the Amulet was made. Don't you think it would be nice +to have it?' + +'Very,' said the children, quite without enthusiasM. + +'And it can give you strength and courage.' + +'That's better,' said Cyril. + +'And virtue.' + +'I suppose it's nice to have that,' said Jane, but not with much +interest. + +'And it can give you your heart's desire.' + +'Now you're talking,' said Robert. + +'Of course I am,' retorted the Psammead tartly, 'so there's no +need for you to.' + +'Heart's desire is good enough for me,' said Cyril. + +'Yes, but,' Anthea ventured, 'all that's what the WHOLE charm can +do. There's something that the half we've got can win off its +own bat--isn't there?' She appealed to the Psammead. It nodded. + +'Yes,' it said; 'the half has the power to take you anywhere you +like to look for the other half.' + +This seemed a brilliant prospect till Robert asked-- + +'Does it know where to look?' + +The Psammead shook its head and answered, 'I don't think it's +likely.' + +'Do you?' + +'No.' + +'Then,' said Robert, 'we might as well look for a needle in a +bottle of hay. Yes--it IS bottle, and not bundle, Father said +so.' + +'Not at all,' said the Psammead briskly-, 'you think you know +everything, but you are quite mistaken. The first thing is to +get the thing to talk.' + +'Can it?' Jane questioned. Jane's question did not mean that she +thought it couldn't, for in spite of the parlour furniture the +feeling of magic was growing deeper and thicker, and seemed to +fill the room like a dream of a scented fog. + +'Of course it can. I suppose you can read.' + +'Oh yes!' Everyone was rather hurt at the question. + +'Well, then--all you've got to do is to read the name that's +written on the part of the charm that you've got. And as soon as +you say the name out loud the thing will have power to do--well, +several things.' + +There was a silence. The red charm was passed from hand to hand. + +'There's no name on it,' said Cyril at last. + +'Nonsense,' said the Psammead; 'what's that?' + +'Oh, THAT!' said Cyril, 'it's not reading. It looks like +pictures of chickens and snakes and things.' + +This was what was on the charm: [Hieroglyphics omitted.] + +'I've no patience with you,' said the Psammead; 'if you can't +read you must find some one who can. A priest now?' + +'We don't know any priests,' said Anthea; 'we know a +clergyman--he's called a priest in the prayer-book, you know--but +he only knows Greek and Latin and Hebrew, and this isn't any of +those--I know.' + +The Psammead stamped a furry foot angrily. + +'I wish I'd never seen you,' it said; 'you aren't any more good +than so many stone images. Not so much, if I'm to tell the +truth. Is there no wise man in your Babylon who can pronounce +the names of the Great Ones?' + +'There's a poor learned gentleman upstairs,' said Anthea, 'we +might try him. He has a lot of stone images in his room, and +iron-looking ones too--we peeped in once when he was out. Old +Nurse says he doesn't eat enough to keep a canary alive. He +spends it all on stones and things.' + +'Try him,' said the Psammead, 'only be careful. If he knows a +greater name than this and uses it against you, your charm will +be of no use. Bind him first with the chains of honour and +upright dealing. And then ask his aid--oh, yes, you'd better all +go; you can put me to sand as you go upstairs. I must have a few +minutes' peace and quietness.' + +So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed their +hair--this was Anthea's idea--and went up to knock at the door of +the 'poor learned gentleman', and to 'bind him with the chains of +honour and upright dealing'. + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +THE PAST + +The learned gentleman had let his dinner get quite cold. It was +mutton chop, and as it lay on the plate it looked like a brown +island in the middle of a frozen pond, because the grease of the +gravy had become cold, and consequently white. It looked very +nasty, and it was the first thing the children saw when, after +knocking three times and receiving no reply, one of them ventured +to turn the handle and softly to open the door. The chop was on +the end of a long table that ran down one side of the room. The +table had images on it and queer-shaped stones, and books. And +there were glass cases fixed against the wall behind, with little +strange things in them. The cases were rather like the ones you +see in jewellers' shops. + +The 'poor learned gentleman' was sitting at a table in the +window, looking at something very small which he held in a pair +of fine pincers. He had a round spy-glass sort of thing in one +eye--which reminded the children of watchmakers, and also of the +long snail's eyes of the Psammead. The gentleman was very long +and thin, and his long, thin boots stuck out under the other side +of his table. He did not hear the door open, and the children +stood hesitating. At last Robert gave the door a push, and they +all started back, for in the middle of the wall that the door had +hidden was a mummy-case--very, very, very big--painted in red and +yellow and green and black, and the face of it seemed to look at +them quite angrily. + +You know what a mummy-case is like, of course? If you don't you +had better go to the British Museum at once and find out. +Anyway, it is not at all the sort of thing that you expect to +meet in a top-floor front in Bloomsbury, looking as though it +would like to know what business YOU had there. + +So everyone said, 'Oh!' rather loud, and their boots clattered as +they stumbled back. + +The learned gentleman took the glass out of his eye and said--'I +beg your pardon,' in a very soft, quiet pleasant voice--the +voice of a gentleman who has been to Oxford. + +'It's us that beg yours,' said Cyril politely. 'We are sorry to +disturb you.' + +'Come in,' said the gentleman, rising--with the most +distinguished courtesy, Anthea told herself. 'I am delighted to +see you. Won't you sit down? No, not there; allow me to move +that papyrus.' + +He cleared a chair, and stood smiling and looking kindly through +his large, round spectacles. + +'He treats us like grown-ups,' whispered Robert, 'and he doesn't +seem to know how many of us there are.' + +'Hush,' said Anthea, 'it isn't manners to whisper. You say, +Cyril--go ahead.' + +'We're very sorry to disturb you,' said Cyril politely, 'but we +did knock three times, and you didn't say "Come in", or "Run away +now", or that you couldn't be bothered just now, or to come when +you weren't so busy, or any of the things people do say when you +knock at doors, so we opened it. We knew you were in because we +heard you sneeze while we were waiting.' + +'Not at all,' said the gentleman; 'do sit down.' + +'He has found out there are four of us,' said Robert, as the +gentleman cleared three more chairs. He put the things off them +carefully on the floor. The first chair had things like bricks +that tiny, tiny birds' feet have walked over when the bricks were +soft, only the marks were in regular lines. The second chair had +round things on it like very large, fat, long, pale beads. And +the last chair had a pile of dusty papers on it. The children sat +down. + +'We know you are very, very learned,' said Cyril, 'and we have +got a charm, and we want you to read the name on it, because it +isn't in Latin or Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the languages WE +know--' + +'A thorough knowledge of even those languages is a very fair +foundation on which to build an education,' said the gentleman +politely. + +'Oh!' said Cyril blushing, 'but we only know them to look at, +except Latin--and I'm only in Caesar with that.' The gentleman +took off his spectacles and laughed. His laugh sounded rusty, +Cyril thought, as though it wasn't often used. + +'Of course!' he said. 'I'm sure I beg your pardon. I think I +must have been in a dream. You are the children who live +downstairs, are you not? Yes. I have seen you as I have passed +in and out. And you have found something that you think to be an +antiquity, and you've brought it to show me? That was very kind. +I should like to inspect it." + +'I'm afraid we didn't think about your liking to inspect it,' +said the truthful Anthea. 'It was just for US because we wanted +to know the name on it--' + +'Oh, yes--and, I say,' Robert interjected, 'you won't think it +rude of us if we ask you first, before we show it, to be bound in +the what-do-you-call-it of--' + +'In the bonds of honour and upright dealing,' said Anthea. + +'I'm afraid I don't quite follow you,' said the gentleman, with +gentle nervousness. + +'Well, it's this way,' said Cyril. 'We've got part of a charm. +And the Sammy--I mean, something told us it would work, though +it's only half a one; but it won't work unless we can say the +name that's on it. But, of course, if you've got another name +that can lick ours, our charm will be no go; so we want you to +give us your word of honour as a gentleman--though I'm sure, now +I've seen you, that it's not necessary; but still I've promised +to ask you, so we must. Will you please give us your honourable +word not to say any name stronger than the name on our charm?' + +The gentleman had put on his spectacles again and was looking at +Cyril through them. He now said: 'Bless me!' more than once, +adding, 'Who told you all this?' + +'I can't tell you,' said Cyril. 'I'm very sorry, but I can't.' + +Some faint memory of a far-off childhood must have come to the +learned gentleman just then, for he smiled. 'I see,' he said. +'It is some sort of game that you are engaged in? Of course! +Yes! Well, I will certainly promise. Yet I wonder how you heard +of the names of power?' + +'We can't tell you that either,' said Cyril; and Anthea said, +'Here is our charm,' and held it out. + +With politeness, but without interest, the gentleman took it. +But after the first glance all his body suddenly stiffened, as a +pointer's does when he sees a partridge. + +'Excuse me,' he said in quite a changed voice, and carried the +charm to the window. He looked at it; he turned it over. He +fixed his spy-glass in his eye and looked again. No one said +anything. Only Robert made a shuffling noise with his feet till +Anthea nudged him to shut up. At last the learned gentleman drew +a long breath. + +'Where did you find this?' he asked. + +'We didn't find it. We bought it at a shop. Jacob Absalom the +name is--not far from Charing Cross,' said Cyril. + +'We gave seven-and-sixpence for it,' added Jane. + +'It is not for sale, I suppose? You do not wish to part with it? + +I ought to tell you that it is extremely +valuable--extraordinarily valuable, I may say.' + +'Yes,' said Cyril, 'we know that, so of course we want to keep +it.' + +'Keep it carefully, then,' said the gentleman impressively; 'and +if ever you should wish to part with it, may I ask you to give me +the refusal of it?' + +'The refusal?' + +'I mean, do not sell it to anyone else until you have given me +the opportunity of buying it.' + +'All right,' said Cyril, 'we won't. But we don't want to sell +it. We want to make it do things.' + +'I suppose you can play at that as well as at anything else,' +said the gentleman; 'but I'm afraid the days of magic are over.' + +'They aren't REALLY,' said Anthea earnestly. 'You'd see they +aren't if I could tell you about our last summer holidays. Only +I mustn't. Thank you very much. And can you read the name?' + +'Yes, I can read it.' + +'Will you tell it us?' 'The name,' said the gentleman, 'is Ur +Hekau Setcheh.' + +'Ur Hekau Setcheh,' repeated Cyril. 'Thanks awfully. I do hope +we haven't taken up too much of your time.' + +'Not at all,' said the gentleman. 'And do let me entreat you to +be very, very careful of that most valuable specimen.' + +They said 'Thank you' in all the different polite ways they could +think of, and filed out of the door and down the stairs. Anthea +was last. Half-way down to the first landing she turned and ran +up again. + +The door was still open, and the learned gentleman and the +mummy-case were standing opposite to each other, and both looked +as though they had stood like that for years. + +The gentleman started when Anthea put her hand on his arm. + +'I hope you won't be cross and say it's not my business,' she +said, 'but do look at your chop! Don't you think you ought to +eat it? Father forgets his dinner sometimes when he's writing, +and Mother always says I ought to remind him if she's not at home +to do it herself, because it's so bad to miss your regular meals. + +So I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind my reminding you, because +you don't seem to have anyone else to do it.' + +She glanced at the mummy-case; IT certainly did not look as +though it would ever think of reminding people of their meals. + +The learned gentleman looked at her for a moment before he said-- + +'Thank you, my dear. It was a kindly thought. No, I haven't +anyone to remind me about things like that.' + +He sighed, and looked at the chop. + +'It looks very nasty,' said Anthea. + +'Yes,' he said, 'it does. I'll eat it immediately, before I +forget.' + +As he ate it he sighed more than once. Perhaps because the chop +was nasty, perhaps because he longed for the charm which the +children did not want to sell, perhaps because it was so long +since anyone cared whether he ate his chops or forgot them. + +Anthea caught the others at the stair-foot. They woke the +Psammead, and it taught them exactly how to use the word of +power, and to make the charm speak. I am not going to tell you +how this is done, because you might try to do it. And for you +any such trying would be almost sure to end in disappointment. +Because in the first place it is a thousand million to one +against your ever getting hold of the right sort of charm, and if +you did, there would be hardly any chance at all of your finding +a learned gentleman clever enough and kind enough to read the +word for you. + +The children and the Psammead crouched in a circle on the +floor--in the girls' bedroom, because in the parlour they might +have been interrupted by old Nurse's coming in to lay the cloth +for tea--and the charm was put in the middle of the circle. + +The sun shone splendidly outside, and the room was very light. +Through the open window came the hum and rattle of London, and in +the street below they could hear the voice of the milkman. + +When all was ready, the Psammead signed to Anthea to say the +word. And she said it. Instantly the whole light of all the +world seemed to go out. The room was dark. The world outside +was dark--darker than the darkest night that ever was. And all +the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence deeper than +any silence you have ever even dreamed of imagining. It was like +being suddenly deaf and blind, only darker and quieter even than +that. + +But before the children had got over the sudden shock of it +enough to be frightened, a faint, beautiful light began to show +in the middle of the circle, and at the same moment a faint, +beautiful voice began to speak. The light was too small for one +to see anything by, and the voice was too small for you to hear +what it said. You could just see the light and just hear the +voice. + +But the light grew stronger. It was greeny, like glow-worms' +lamps, and it grew and grew till it was as though thousands and +thousands of glow-worms were signalling to their winged +sweethearts from the middle of the circle. And the voice grew, +not so much in loudness as in sweetness (though it grew louder, +too), till it was so sweet that you wanted to cry with pleasure +just at the sound of it. It was like nightingales, and the sea, +and the fiddle, and the voice of your mother when you have been a +long time away, and she meets you at the door when you get home. + +And the voice said-- + +'Speak. What is it that you would hear?' + +I cannot tell you what language the voice used. I only know that +everyone present understood it perfectly. If you come to think +of it, there must be some language that everyone could +understand, if we only knew what it was. Nor can I tell you how +the charm spoke, nor whether it was the charm that spoke, or some +presence in the charm. The children could not have told you +either. Indeed, they could not look at the charm while it was +speaking, because the light was too bright. They looked instead +at the green radiance on the faded Kidderminster carpet at the +edge of the circle. They all felt very quiet, and not inclined +to ask questions or fidget with their feet. For this was not +like the things that had happened in the country when the +Psammead had given them their wishes. That had been funny +somehow, and this was not. It was something like Arabian Nights +magic, and something like being in church. No one cared to +speak. + +It was Cyril who said at last-- + +'Please we want to know where the other half of the charm is.' + +'The part of the Amulet which is lost,' said the beautiful voice, +'was broken and ground into the dust of the shrine that held it. +It and the pin that joined the two halves are themselves dust, +and the dust is scattered over many lands and sunk in many seas.' + +'Oh, I say!' murmured Robert, and a blank silence fell. 'Then +it's all up?' said Cyril at last; 'it's no use our looking for a +thing that's smashed into dust, and the dust scattered all over +the place.' + +'If you would find it,' said the voice, 'You must seek it where +it still is, perfect as ever.' + +'I don't understand,' said Cyril. + +'In the Past you may find it,' said the voice. + +'I wish we MAY find it,' said Cyril. + +The Psammead whispered crossly, 'Don't you understand? The thing +existed in the Past. If you were in the Past, too, you could +find it. It's very difficult to make you understand things. +Time and space are only forms of thought.' + +'I see,' said Cyril. + +'No, you don't,' said the Psammead, 'and it doesn't matter if you +don't, either. What I mean is that if you were only made the +right way, you could see everything happening in the same place +at the same time. Now do you see?' + +'I'm afraid _I_ don't,' said Anthea; 'I'm sorry I'm so stupid.' + +'Well, at any rate, you see this. That lost half of the Amulet +is in the Past. Therefore it's in the Past we must look for it. +I mustn't speak to the charm myself. Ask it things! Find out!' + +'Where can we find the other part of you?' asked Cyril +obediently. + +'In the Past,' said the voice. + +'What part of the Past?' + +'I may not tell you. If you will choose a time, I will take you +to the place that then held it. You yourselves must find it.' + +'When did you see it last?' asked Anthea--'I mean, when was it +taken away from you?' + +The beautiful voice answered-- + +'That was thousands of years ago. The Amulet was perfect then, +and lay in a shrine, the last of many shrines, and I worked +wonders. Then came strange men with strange weapons and +destroyed my shrine, and the Amulet they bore away with many +captives. But of these, one, my priest, knew the word of power, +and spoke it for me, so that the Amulet became invisible, and +thus returned to my shrine, but the shrine was broken down, and +ere any magic could rebuild it one spoke a word before which my +power bowed down and was still. And the Amulet lay there, still +perfect, but enslaved. Then one coming with stones to rebuild +the shrine, dropped a hewn stone on the Amulet as it lay, and one +half was sundered from the other. I had no power to seek for +that which was lost. And there being none to speak the word of +power, I could not rejoin it. So the Amulet lay in the dust of +the desert many thousand years, and at last came a small man, a +conqueror with an army, and after him a crowd of men who sought +to seem wise, and one of these found half the Amulet and brought +it to this land. But none could read the name. So I lay still. +And this man dying and his son after him, the Amulet was sold by +those who came after to a merchant, and from him you bought it, +and it is here, and now, the name of power having been spoken, I +also am here.' + +This is what the voice said. I think it must have meant Napoleon +by the small man, the conqueror. Because I know I have been told +that he took an army to Egypt, and that afterwards a lot of wise +people went grubbing in the sand, and fished up all sorts of +wonderful things, older than you would think possible. And of +these I believe this charm to have been one, and the most +wonderful one of all. + +Everyone listened: and everyone tried to think. It is not easy +to do this clearly when you have been listening to the kind of +talk I have told you about. + +At last Robert said-- + +'Can you take us into the Past--to the shrine where you and the +other thing were together. If you could take us there, we might +find the other part still there after all these thousands of +years.' + +'Still there? silly!' said Cyril. 'Don't you see, if we go back +into the Past it won't be thousands of years ago. It will be NOW +for us--won't it?' He appealed to the Psammead, who said-- + +'You're not so far off the idea as you usually are!' + +'Well,' said Anthea, 'will you take us back to when there was a +shrine and you were safe in it--all of you?' + +'Yes,' said the voice. 'You must hold me up, and speak the word +of power, and one by one, beginning with the first-born, you +shall pass through me into the Past. But let the last that +passes be the one that holds me, and let him not lose his hold, +lest you lose me, and so remain in the Past for ever.' + +'That's a nasty idea,' said Robert. + +'When you desire to return,' the beautiful voice went on, 'hold +me up towards the East, and speak the word. Then, passing +through me, you shall return to this time and it shall be the +present to you.' + +'But how--' A bell rang loudly. + +'Oh crikey!' exclaimed Robert, 'that's tea! Will you please make +it proper daylight again so that we can go down. And thank you +so much for all your kindness.' + +'We've enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you!' added +Anthea politely. + +The beautiful light faded slowly. The great darkness and silence +came and these suddenly changed to the dazzlement of day and the +great soft, rustling sound of London, that is like some vast +beast turning over in its sleep. + +The children rubbed their eyes, the Psammead ran quickly to its +sandy bath, and the others went down to tea. And until the cups +were actually filled tea seemed less real than the beautiful +voice and the greeny light. + +After tea Anthea persuaded the others to allow her to hang the +charm round her neck with a piece of string. + +'It would be so awful if it got lost,' she said: 'it might get +lost anywhere, you know, and it would be rather beastly for us to +have to stay in the Past for ever and ever, wouldn't it?' + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO + +Next morning Anthea got old Nurse to allow her to take up the +'poor learned gentleman's' breakfast. He did not recognize her +at first, but when he did he was vaguely pleased to see her. + +'You see I'm wearing the charm round my neck,' she said; 'I'm +taking care of it--like you told us to.' + +'That's right,' said he; 'did you have a good game last night?' + +'You will eat your breakfast before it's cold, won't you?' said +Anthea. 'Yes, we had a splendid time. The charm made it all +dark, and then greeny light, and then it spoke. Oh! I wish you +could have heard it--it was such a darling voice--and it told us +the other half of it was lost in the Past, so of course we shall +have to look for it there!' + +The learned gentleman rubbed his hair with both hands and looked +anxiously at Anthea. + +'I suppose it's natural--youthful imagination and so forth,' he +said. 'Yet someone must have ... Who told you that some part of +the charm was missing?' + +'I can't tell you,' she said. 'I know it seems most awfully +rude, especially after being so kind about telling us the name of +power, and all that, but really, I'm not allowed to tell anybody +anything about the--the--the person who told me. You won't +forget your breakfast, will you?' + +The learned gentleman smiled feebly and then frowned--not a +cross-frown, but a puzzle-frown. + +'Thank you,' he said, 'I shall always be pleased if you'll look +in--any time you're passing you know--at least ...' + +'I will,' she said; 'goodbye. I'll always tell you anything I +MAY tell.' + +He had not had many adventures with children in them, and he +wondered whether all children were like these. He spent quite +five minutes in wondering before he settled down to the +fifty-second chapter of his great book on 'The Secret Rites of +the Priests of Amen Ra'. + + +It is no use to pretend that the children did not feel a good +deal of agitation at the thought of going through the charm into +the Past. That idea, that perhaps they might stay in the Past +and never get back again, was anything but pleasing. Yet no one +would have dared to suggest that the charm should not be used; +and though each was in its heart very frightened indeed, they +would all have joined in jeering at the cowardice of any one of +them who should have uttered the timid but natural suggestion, +'Don't let's!' + +It seemed necessary to make arrangements for being out all day, +for there was no reason to suppose that the sound of the +dinner-bell would be able to reach back into the Past, and it +seemed unwise to excite old Nurse's curiosity when nothing they +could say--not even the truth--could in any way satisfy it. They +were all very proud to think how well they had understood what +the charm and the Psammead had said about Time and Space and +things like that, and they were perfectly certain that it would +be quite impossible to make old Nurse understand a single word of +it. So they merely asked her to let them take their dinner out +into Regent's Park--and this, with the implied cold mutton and +tomatoes, was readily granted. + +'You can get yourselves some buns or sponge-cakes, or whatever +you fancy-like,' said old Nurse, giving Cyril a shilling. 'Don't +go getting jam-tarts, now--so messy at the best of times, and +without forks and plates ruination to your clothes, besides your +not being able to wash your hands and faces afterwards.' + +So Cyril took the shilling, and they all started off. They went +round by the Tottenham Court Road to buy a piece of waterproof +sheeting to put over the Psammead in case it should be raining in +the Past when they got there. For it is almost certain death to +a Psammead to get wet. + +The sun was shining very brightly, and even London looked pretty. +Women were selling roses from big baskets-full, and Anthea bought +four roses, one each, for herself and the others. They were red +roses and smelt of summer--the kind of roses you always want so +desperately at about Christmas-time when you can only get +mistletoe, which is pale right through to its very scent, and +holly which pricks your nose if you try to smell it. So now +everyone had a rose in its buttonhole, and soon everyone was +sitting on the grass in Regent's Park under trees whose leaves +would have been clean, clear green in the country, but here were +dusty and yellowish, and brown at the edges. + +'We've got to go on with it,' said Anthea, 'and as the eldest has +to go first, you'll have to be last, Jane. You quite understand +about holding on to the charm as you go through, don't you, +Pussy?' + +'I wish I hadn't got to be last,' said Jane. + +'You shall carry the Psammead if you like,' said Anthea. 'That +is,' she added, remembering the beast's queer temper, 'if it'll +let you.' + +The Psammead, however, was unexpectedly amiable. + +'_I_ don't mind,' it said, 'who carries me, so long as it doesn't +drop me. I can't bear being dropped.' + +Jane with trembling hands took the Psammead and its fish-basket +under one arm. The charm's long string was hung round her neck. +Then they all stood up. Jane held out the charm at arm's length, +and Cyril solemnly pronounced the word of power. + +As he spoke it the charm grew tall and broad, and he saw that +Jane was just holding on to the edge of a great red arch of very +curious shape. The opening of the arch was small, but Cyril saw +that he could go through it. All round and beyond the arch were +the faded trees and trampled grass of Regent's Park, where the +little ragged children were playing Ring-o'-Roses. But through +the opening of it shone a blaze of blue and yellow and red. +Cyril drew a long breath and stiffened his legs so that the +others should not see that his knees were trembling and almost +knocking together. 'Here goes!' he said, and, stepping up +through the arch, disappeared. Then followed Anthea. Robert, +coming next, held fast, at Anthea's suggestion, to the sleeve of +Jane, who was thus dragged safely through the arch. And as soon +as they were on the other side of the arch there was no more arch +at all and no more Regent's Park either, only the charm in Jane's +hand, and it was its proper size again. They were now in a light +so bright that they winked and blinked and rubbed their eyes. +During this dazzling interval Anthea felt for the charm and +pushed it inside Jane's frock, so that it might be quite safe. +When their eyes got used to the new wonderful light the children +looked around them. The sky was very, very blue, and it sparkled +and glittered and dazzled like the sea at home when the sun +shines on it. + +They were standing on a little clearing in a thick, low forest; +there were trees and shrubs and a close, thorny, tangly +undergrowth. In front of them stretched a bank of strange black +mud, then came the browny-yellowy shining ribbon of a river. +Then more dry, caked mud and more greeny-browny jungle. The only +things that told that human people had been there were the +clearing, a path that led to it, and an odd arrangement of cut +reeds in the river. + +They looked at each other. + +'Well!' said Robert, 'this IS a change of air!' + +It was. The air was hotter than they could have imagined, even +in London in August. + +'I wish I knew where we were,' said Cyril. + +'Here's a river, now--I wonder whether it's the Amazon or the +Tiber, or what.' + +'It's the Nile,' said the Psammead, looking out of the fish-bag. + +'Then this is Egypt,' said Robert, who had once taken a geography +prize. + +'I don't see any crocodiles,' Cyril objected. His prize had been +for natural history. + +The Psammead reached out a hairy arm from its basket and pointed +to a heap of mud at the edge of the water. + +'What do you call that?' it said; and as it spoke the heap of mud +slid into the river just as a slab of damp mixed mortar will slip +from a bricklayer's trowel. + +'Oh!' said everybody. + +There was a crashing among the reeds on the other side of the +water. + +'And there's a river-horse!' said the Psammead, as a great beast +like an enormous slaty-blue slug showed itself against the black +bank on the far side of the stream. + +'It's a hippopotamus,' said Cyril; 'it seems much more real +somehow than the one at the Zoo, doesn't it?' + +'I'm glad it's being real on the other side of the river,' said +Jane. And now there was a crackling of reeds and twigs behind +them. This was horrible. Of course it might be another +hippopotamus, or a crocodile, or a lion--or, in fact, almost +anything. + +'Keep your hand on the charm, Jane,' said Robert hastily. 'We +ought to have a means of escape handy. I'm dead certain this is +the sort of place where simply anything might happen to us.' + +'I believe a hippopotamus is going to happen to us,' said +Jane--'a very, very big one.' + +They had all turned to face the danger. + +'Don't be silly little duffers,' said the Psammead in its +friendly, informal way; 'it's not a river-horse. It's a human.' + +It was. It was a girl--of about Anthea's age. Her hair was +short and fair, and though her skin was tanned by the sun, you +could see that it would have been fair too if it had had a +chance. She had every chance of being tanned, for she had no +clothes to speak of, and the four English children, carefully +dressed in frocks, hats, shoes, stockings, coats, collars, and +all the rest of it, envied her more than any words of theirs or +of mine could possibly say. There was no doubt that here was the +right costume for that climate. + +She carried a pot on her head, of red and black earthenware. She +did not see the children, who shrank back against the edge of the +jungle, and she went forward to the brink of the river to fill +her pitcher. As she went she made a strange sort of droning, +humming, melancholy noise all on two notes. Anthea could not +help thinking that perhaps the girl thought this noise was +singing. + +The girl filled the pitcher and set it down by the river bank. +Then she waded into the water and stooped over the circle of cut +reeds. She pulled half a dozen fine fish out of the water within +the reeds, killing each as she took it out, and threading it on a +long osier that she carried. Then she knotted the osier, hung it +on her arm, picked up the pitcher, and turned to come back. And +as she turned she saw the four children. The white dresses of +Jane and Anthea stood out like snow against the dark forest +background. She screamed and the pitcher fell, and the water was +spilled out over the hard mud surface and over the fish, which +had fallen too. Then the water slowly trickled away into the +deep cracks. + +'Don't be frightened,' Anthea cried, 'we won't hurt you.' + +'Who are you?' said the girl. + +Now, once for all, I am not going to be bothered to tell you how +it was that the girl could understand Anthea and Anthea could +understand the girl. YOU, at any rate, would not understand ME, +if I tried to explain it, any more than you can understand about +time and space being only forms of thought. You may think what +you like. Perhaps the children had found out the universal +language which everyone can understand, and which wise men so far +have not found. You will have noticed long ago that they were +singularly lucky children, and they may have had this piece of +luck as well as others. Or it may have been that ... but why +pursue the question further? The fact remains that in all their +adventures the muddle-headed inventions which we call foreign +languages never bothered them in the least. They could always +understand and be understood. If you can explain this, please +do. I daresay I could understand your explanation, though you +could never understand mine. + +So when the girl said, 'Who are you?' everyone understood at +once, and Anthea replied-- + +'We are children--just like you. Don't be frightened. Won't you +show us where you live?' + +Jane put her face right into the Psammead's basket, and burrowed +her mouth into its fur to whisper-- + +'Is it safe? Won't they eat us? Are they cannibals?' + +The Psammead shrugged its fur. + +'Don't make your voice buzz like that, it tickles my ears,' it +said rather crossly. 'You can always get back to Regent's Park +in time if you keep fast hold of the charm,' it said. + +The strange girl was trembling with fright. + +Anthea had a bangle on her arm. It was a sevenpenny-halfpenny +trumpery thing that pretended to be silver; it had a glass heart +of turquoise blue hanging from it, and it was the gift of the +maid-of-all-work at the Fitzroy Street house. 'Here,' said +Anthea, 'this is for you. That is to show we will not hurt you. +And if you take it I shall know that you won't hurt us.' + +The girl held out her hand. Anthea slid the bangle over it, and +the girl's face lighted up with the joy of possession. + +'Come,' she said, looking lovingly at the bangle; 'it is peace +between your house and mine.' + +She picked up her fish and pitcher and led the way up the narrow +path by which she had come and the others followed. + +'This is something like!' said Cyril, trying to be brave. + +'Yes!' said Robert, also assuming a boldness he was far from +feeling, 'this really and truly IS an adventure! Its being in +the Past makes it quite different from the Phoenix and Carpet +happenings.' + +The belt of thick-growing acacia trees and shrubs--mostly prickly +and unpleasant-looking--seemed about half a mile across. The +path was narrow and the wood dark. At last, ahead, daylight +shone through the boughs and leaves. + +The whole party suddenly came out of the wood's shadow into the +glare of the sunlight that shone on a great stretch of yellow +sand, dotted with heaps of grey rocks where spiky cactus plants +showed gaudy crimson and pink flowers among their shabby, +sand-peppered leaves. Away to the right was something that +looked like a grey-brown hedge, and from beyond it blue smoke +went up to the bluer sky. And over all the sun shone till you +could hardly bear your clothes. + +'That is where I live,' said the girl pointing. + +'I won't go,' whispered Jane into the basket, 'unless you say +it's all right.' + +The Psammead ought to have been touched by this proof of +confidence. Perhaps, however, it looked upon it as a proof of +doubt, for it merely snarled-- + +'If you don't go now I'll never help you again.' + +'OH,' whispered Anthea, 'dear Jane, don't! Think of Father and +Mother and all of us getting our heart's desire. And we can go +back any minute. Come on!' + +'Besides,' said Cyril, in a low voice, 'the Psammead must know +there's no danger or it wouldn't go. It's not so over and above +brave itself. Come on!' + +This Jane at last consented to do. + +As they got nearer to the browny fence they saw that it was a +great hedge about eight feet high, made of piled-up thorn bushes. + +'What's that for?' asked Cyril. + +'To keep out foes and wild beasts,' said the girl. + +'I should think it ought to, too,' said he. 'Why, some of the +thorns are as long as my foot.' + +There was an opening in the hedge, and they followed the girl +through it. A little way further on was another hedge, not so +high, also of dry thorn bushes, very prickly and +spiteful-looking, and within this was a sort of village of huts. + +There were no gardens and no roads. Just huts built of wood and +twigs and clay, and roofed with great palm-leaves, dumped down +anywhere. The doors of these houses were very low, like the +doors of dog-kennels. The ground between them was not paths or +streets, but just yellow sand trampled very hard and smooth. + +In the middle of the village there was a hedge that enclosed what +seemed to be a piece of ground about as big as their own garden +in Camden Town. + +No sooner were the children well within the inner thorn hedge +than dozens of men and women and children came crowding round +from behind and inside the huts. + +The girl stood protectingly in front of the four children, and +said-- + +'They are wonder-children from beyond the desert. They bring +marvellous gifts, and I have said that it is peace between us and +them.' + +She held out her arm with the Lowther Arcade bangle on it. + +The children from London, where nothing now surprises anyone, had +never before seen so many people look so astonished. + +They crowded round the children, touching their clothes, their +shoes, the buttons on the boys' jackets, and the coral of the +girls' necklaces. + +'Do say something,' whispered Anthea. + +'We come,' said Cyril, with some dim remembrance of a dreadful +day when he had had to wait in an outer office while his father +interviewed a solicitor, and there had been nothing to read but +the Daily Telegraph--'we come from the world where the sun never +sets. And peace with honour is what we want. We are the great +Anglo-Saxon or conquering race. Not that we want to conquer +YOU,' he added hastily. 'We only want to look at your houses and +your--well, at all you've got here, and then we shall return to +our own place, and tell of all that we have seen so that your +name may be famed.' + +Cyril's speech didn't keep the crowd from pressing round and +looking as eagerly as ever at the clothing of the children. +Anthea had an idea that these people had never seen woven stuff +before, and she saw how wonderful and strange it must seem to +people who had never had any clothes but the skins of beasts. +The sewing, too, of modern clothes seemed to astonish them very +much. They must have been able to sew themselves, by the way, +for men who seemed to be the chiefs wore knickerbockers of +goat-skin or deer-skin, fastened round the waist with twisted +strips of hide. And the women wore long skimpy skirts of +animals' skins. The people were not very tall, their hair was +fair, and men and women both had it short. Their eyes were blue, +and that seemed odd in Egypt. Most of them were tattooed like +sailors, only more roughly. + +'What is this? What is this?' they kept asking touching the +children's clothes curiously. + +Anthea hastily took off Jane's frilly lace collar and handed it +to the woman who seemed most friendly. + +'Take this,' she said, 'and look at it. And leave us alone. We +want to talk among ourselves.' + +She spoke in the tone of authority which she had always found +successful when she had not time to coax her baby brother to do +as he was told. The tone was just as successful now. The +children were left together and the crowd retreated. It paused a +dozen yards away to look at the lace collar and to go on talking +as hard as it could. + +The children will never know what those people said, though they +knew well enough that they, the four strangers, were the subject +of the talk. They tried to comfort themselves by remembering the +girl's promise of friendliness, but of course the thought of the +charm was more comfortable than anything else. They sat down on +the sand in the shadow of the hedged-round place in the middle of +the village, and now for the first time they were able to look +about them and to see something more than a crowd of eager, +curious faces. + +They here noticed that the women wore necklaces made of beads of +different coloured stone, and from these hung pendants of odd, +strange shapes, and some of them had bracelets of ivory and +flint. + +'I say,' said Robert, 'what a lot we could teach them if we +stayed here!' + +'I expect they could teach us something too,' said Cyril. 'Did +you notice that flint bracelet the woman had that Anthea gave the +collar to? That must have taken some making. Look here, they'll +get suspicious if we talk among ourselves, and I do want to know +about how they do things. Let's get the girl to show us round, +and we can be thinking about how to get the Amulet at the same +time. Only mind, we must keep together.' + +Anthea beckoned to the girl, who was standing a little way off +looking wistfully at them, and she came gladly. + +'Tell us how you make the bracelets, the stone ones,' said Cyril. + +'With other stones,' said the girl; 'the men make them; we have +men of special skill in such work.' + +'Haven't you any iron tools?' + +'Iron,' said the girl, 'I don't know what you mean.' It was the +first word she had not understood. + +'Are all your tools of flint?' asked Cyril. 'Of course,' said the +girl, opening her eyes wide. + +I wish I had time to tell you of that talk. The English children +wanted to hear all about this new place, but they also wanted to +tell of their own country. It was like when you come back from +your holidays and you want to hear and to tell everything at the +same time. As the talk went on there were more and more words +that the girl could not understand, and the children soon gave up +the attempt to explain to her what their own country was like, +when they began to see how very few of the things they had always +thought they could not do without were really not at all +necessary to life. + +The girl showed them how the huts were made--indeed, as one was +being made that very day she took them to look at it. The way of +building was very different from ours. The men stuck long pieces +of wood into a piece of ground the size of the hut they wanted to +make. These were about eight inches apart; then they put in +another row about eight inches away from the first, and then a +third row still further out. Then all the space between was +filled up with small branches and twigs, and then daubed over +with black mud worked with the feet till it was soft and sticky +like putty. + +The girl told them how the men went hunting with flint spears and +arrows, and how they made boats with reeds and clay. Then she +explained the reed thing in the river that she had taken the fish +out of. It was a fish-trap--just a ring of reeds set up in the +water with only one little opening in it, and in this opening, +just below the water, were stuck reeds slanting the way of the +river's flow, so that the fish, when they had swum sillily in, +sillily couldn't get out again. She showed them the clay pots +and jars and platters, some of them ornamented with black and red +patterns, and the most wonderful things made of flint and +different sorts of stone, beads, and ornaments, and tools and +weapons of all sorts and kinds. + +'It is really wonderful,' said Cyril patronizingly, 'when you +consider that it's all eight thousand years ago--' + +'I don't understand you,' said the girl. + +'It ISN'T eight thousand years ago,' whispered Jane. 'It's +NOW--and that's just what I don't like about it. I say, DO let's +get home again before anything more happens. You can see for +yourselves the charm isn't here.' + +'What's in that place in the middle?' asked Anthea, struck by a +sudden thought, and pointing to the fence. + +'That's the secret sacred place,' said the girl in a whisper. +'No one knows what is there. There are many walls, and inside +the insidest one IT is, but no one knows what IT is except the +headsmen.' + +'I believe YOU know,' said Cyril, looking at her very hard. + +'I'll give you this if you'll tell me,' said Anthea taking off a +bead-ring which had already been much admired. + +'Yes,' said the girl, catching eagerly at the ring. 'My father +is one of the heads, and I know a water charm to make him talk in +his sleep. And he has spoken. I will tell you. But if they +know I have told you they will kill me. In the insidest inside +there is a stone box, and in it there is the Amulet. None knows +whence it came. It came from very far away.' + +'Have you seen it?' asked Anthea. + +The girl nodded. + +'Is it anything like this?' asked Jane, rashly producing the +charm. + +The girl's face turned a sickly greenish-white. + +'Hide it, hide it,' she whispered. 'You must put it back. If +they see it they will kill us all. You for taking it, and me for +knowing that there was such a thing. Oh, woe--woe! why did you +ever come here?' + +'Don't be frightened,' said Cyril. 'They shan't know. Jane, +don't you be such a little jack-ape again--that's all. You see +what will happen if you do. Now, tell me--' He turned to the +girl, but before he had time to speak the question there was a +loud shout, and a man bounded in through the opening in the +thorn-hedge. + +'Many foes are upon us!' he cried. 'Make ready the defences!' + +His breath only served for that, and he lay panting on the +ground. 'Oh, DO let's go home!' said Jane. 'Look here--I don't +care--I WILL!' + +She held up the charm. Fortunately all the strange, fair people +were too busy to notice HER. She held up the charm. And nothing +happened. + +'You haven't said the word of power,' said Anthea. + +Jane hastily said it--and still nothing happened. + +'Hold it up towards the East, you silly!' said Robert. + +'Which IS the East?' said Jane, dancing about in her agony of +terror. + +Nobody knew. So they opened the fish-bag to ask the Psammead. + +And the bag had only a waterproof sheet in it. + +The Psammead was gone. + +'Hide the sacred thing! Hide it! Hide it!' whispered the girl. + +Cyril shrugged his shoulders, and tried to look as brave as he +knew he ought to feel. + +'Hide it up, Pussy,' he said. 'We are in for it now. We've just +got to stay and see it out.' + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE + +Here was a horrible position! Four English children, whose +proper date was A.D. 1905, and whose proper address was London, +set down in Egypt in the year 6000 B.C. with no means whatever +of getting back into their own time and place. They could not +find the East, and the sun was of no use at the moment, because +some officious person had once explained to Cyril that the sun +did not really set in the West at all--nor rise in the East +either, for the matter of that. + +The Psammead had crept out of the bass-bag when they were not +looking and had basely deserted them. + +An enemy was approaching. There would be a fight. People get +killed in fights, and the idea of taking part in a fight was one +that did not appeal to the children. + +The man who had brought the news of the enemy still lay panting +on the sand. His tongue was hanging out, long and red, like a +dog's. The people of the village were hurriedly filling the gaps +in the fence with thorn-bushes from the heap that seemed to have +been piled there ready for just such a need. They lifted the +cluster-thorns with long poles--much as men at home, nowadays, +lift hay with a fork. + +Jane bit her lip and tried to decide not to cry. + +Robert felt in his pocket for a toy pistol and loaded it with a +pink paper cap. It was his only weapon. + +Cyril tightened his belt two holes. + +And Anthea absently took the drooping red roses from the +buttonholes of the others, bit the ends of the stalks, and set +them in a pot of water that stood in the shadow by a hut door. +She was always rather silly about flowers. + +'Look here!' she said. 'I think perhaps the Psammead is really +arranging something for us. I don't believe it would go away and +leave us all alone in the Past. I'm certain it wouldn't.' + +Jane succeeded in deciding not to cry--at any rate yet. + +'But what can we do?' Robert asked. + +'Nothing,' Cyril answered promptly, 'except keep our eyes and +ears open. Look! That runner chap's getting his wind. Let's go +and hear what he's got to say.' + +The runner had risen to his knees and was sitting back on his +heels. Now he stood up and spoke. He began by some respectful +remarks addressed to the heads of the village. His speech got +more interesting when he said-- + +'I went out in my raft to snare ibises, and I had gone up the +stream an hour's journey. Then I set my snares and waited. And +I heard the sound of many wings, and looking up, saw many herons +circling in the air. And I saw that they were afraid; so I took +thought. A beast may scare one heron, coming upon it suddenly, +but no beast will scare a whole flock of herons. And still they +flew and circled, and would not light. So then I knew that what +scared the herons must be men, and men who knew not our ways of +going softly so as to take the birds and beasts unawares. By +this I knew they were not of our race or of our place. So, +leaving my raft, I crept along the river bank, and at last came +upon the strangers. They are many as the sands of the desert, +and their spear-heads shine red like the sun. They are a +terrible people, and their march is towards US. Having seen +this, I ran, and did not stay till I was before you.' + +'These are YOUR folk,' said the headman, turning suddenly and +angrily on Cyril, 'you came as spies for them.' + +'We did NOT,' said Cyril indignantly. 'We wouldn't be spies for +anything. I'm certain these people aren't a bit like us. Are +they now?' he asked the runner. + +'No,' was the answer. 'These men's faces were darkened, and +their hair black as night. Yet these strange children, maybe, +are their gods, who have come before to make ready the way for +them.' + +A murmur ran through the crowd. + +'No, NO,' said Cyril again. 'We are on your side. We will help +you to guard your sacred things.' + +The headman seemed impressed by the fact that Cyril knew that +there WERE sacred things to be guarded. He stood a moment gazing +at the children. Then he said-- + +'It is well. And now let all make offering, that we may be +strong in battle.' + +The crowd dispersed, and nine men, wearing antelope-skins, +grouped themselves in front of the opening in the hedge in the +middle of the village. And presently, one by one, the men +brought all sorts of things--hippopotamus flesh, +ostrich-feathers, the fruit of the date palms, red chalk, green +chalk, fish from the river, and ibex from the mountains; and the +headman received these gifts. There was another hedge inside the +first, about a yard from it, so that there was a lane inside +between the hedges. And every now and then one of the headmen +would disappear along this lane with full hands and come back +with hands empty. + +'They're making offerings to their Amulet,' said Anthea. 'We'd +better give something too.' + +The pockets of the party, hastily explored, yielded a piece of +pink tape, a bit of sealing-wax, and part of the Waterbury watch +that Robert had not been able to help taking to pieces at +Christmas and had never had time to rearrange. Most boys have a +watch in this condition. They presented their offerings, and +Anthea added the red roses. + +The headman who took the things looked at them with awe, +especially at the red roses and the Waterbury-watch fragment. + +'This is a day of very wondrous happenings,' he said. 'I have no +more room in me to be astonished. Our maiden said there was +peace between you and us. But for this coming of a foe we should +have made sure.' + +The children shuddered. + +'Now speak. Are you upon our side?' + +'YES. Don't I keep telling you we are?' Robert said. 'Look +here. I will give you a sign. You see this.' He held out the +toy pistol. 'I shall speak to it, and if it answers me you will +know that I and the others are come to guard your sacred +thing--that we've just made the offerings to.' + +'Will that god whose image you hold in your hand speak to you +alone, or shall I also hear it?' asked the man cautiously. + +'You'll be surprised when you DO hear it,' said Robert. 'Now, +then.' He looked at the pistol and said-- + +'If we are to guard the sacred treasure within'--he pointed to +the hedged-in space--'speak with thy loud voice, and we shall +obey.' + +He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, +for it was a two-shilling pistol, and the caps were excellent. + +Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on +the sand. The headman who had accepted the test rose first. + +'The voice has spoken,' he said. 'Lead them into the ante-room +of the sacred thing.' + +So now the four children were led in through the opening of the +hedge and round the lane till they came to an opening in the +inner hedge, and they went through an opening in that, and so +passed into another lane. + +The thing was built something like this, and all the hedges were +of brushwood and thorns: [Drawing of maze omitted.] + +'It's like the maze at Hampton Court,' whispered Anthea. + +The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the +middle of the maze was round-roofed, and a curtain of skins hung +over the doorway. + +'Here you may wait,' said their guide, 'but do not dare to pass +the curtain.' He himself passed it and disappeared. + +'But look here,' whispered Cyril, 'some of us ought to be outside +in case the Psammead turns up.' + +'Don't let's get separated from each other, whatever we do,' said +Anthea. 'It's quite bad enough to be separated from the +Psammead. We can't do anything while that man is in there. +Let's all go out into the village again. We can come back later +now we know the way in. That man'll have to fight like the rest, +most likely, if it comes to fighting. If we find the Psammead +we'll go straight home. + +It must be getting late, and I don't much like this mazy place.' + +They went out and told the headman that they would protect the +treasure when the fighting began. And now they looked about them +and were able to see exactly how a first-class worker in flint +flakes and notches an arrow-head or the edge of an axe--an +advantage which no other person now alive has ever enjoyed. The +boys found the weapons most interesting. The arrow-heads were +not on arrows such as you shoot from a bow, but on javelins, for +throwing from the hand. The chief weapon was a stone fastened to +a rather short stick something like the things gentlemen used to +carry about and call life-preservers in the days of the +garrotters. + +Then there were long things like spears or lances, with flint +knives--horribly sharp--and flint battle-axes. + +Everyone in the village was so busy that the place was like an +ant-heap when you have walked into it by accident. The women +were busy and even the children. + +Quite suddenly all the air seemed to glow and grow red--it was +like the sudden opening of a furnace door, such as you may see at +Woolwich Arsenal if you ever have the luck to be taken there--and +then almost as suddenly it was as though the furnace doors had +been shut. For the sun had set, and it was night. + +The sun had that abrupt way of setting in Egypt eight thousand +years ago, and I believe it has never been able to break itself +of the habit, and sets in exactly the same manner to the present +day. The girl brought the skins of wild deer and led the +children to a heap of dry sedge. + +'My father says they will not attack yet. Sleep!' she said, and +it really seemed a good idea. You may think that in the midst of +all these dangers the children would not have been able to +sleep--but somehow, though they were rather frightened now and +then, the feeling was growing in them--deep down and almost +hidden away, but still growing--that the Psammead was to be +trusted, and that they were really and truly safe. This did not +prevent their being quite as much frightened as they could bear +to be without being perfectly miserable. + +'I suppose we'd better go to sleep,' said Robert. 'I don't know +what on earth poor old Nurse will do with us out all night; set +the police on our tracks, I expect. I only wish they could find +us! A dozen policemen would be rather welcome just now. But +it's no use getting into a stew over it,' he added soothingly. +'Good night.' + +And they all fell asleep. + +They were awakened by long, loud, terrible sounds that seemed to +come from everywhere at once--horrible threatening shouts and +shrieks and howls that sounded, as Cyril said later, like the +voices of men thirsting for their enemies' blood. + +'It is the voice of the strange men,' said the girl, coming to +them trembling through the dark. 'They have attacked the walls, +and the thorns have driven them back. My father says they will +not try again till daylight. But they are shouting to frighten +us. As though we were savages! Dwellers in the swamps!' she +cried indignantly. + +All night the terrible noise went on, but when the sun rose, as +abruptly as he had set, the sound suddenly ceased. + +The children had hardly time to be glad of this before a shower +of javelins came hurtling over the great thorn-hedge, and +everyone sheltered behind the huts. But next moment another +shower of weapons came from the opposite side, and the crowd +rushed to other shelter. Cyril pulled out a javelin that had +stuck in the roof of the hut beside him. Its head was of +brightly burnished copper. + +Then the sound of shouting arose again and the crackle of dried +thorns. The enemy was breaking down the hedge. All the +villagers swarmed to the point whence the crackling and the +shouting came; they hurled stones over the hedges, and short +arrows with flint heads. The children had never before seen men +with the fighting light in their eyes. It was very strange and +terrible, and gave you a queer thick feeling in your throat; it +was quite different from the pictures of fights in the +illustrated papers at home. + +It seemed that the shower of stones had driven back the +besiegers. The besieged drew breath, but at that moment the +shouting and the crackling arose on the opposite side of the +village and the crowd hastened to defend that point, and so the +fight swayed to and fro across the village, for the besieged had +not the sense to divide their forces as their enemies had done. + +Cyril noticed that every now and then certain of the fighting-men +would enter the maze, and come out with brighter faces, a braver +aspect, and a more upright carriage. + +'I believe they go and touch the Amulet,' he said. 'You know the +Psammead said it could make people brave.' + +They crept through the maze, and watching they saw that Cyril was +right. A headman was standing in front of the skin curtain, and +as the warriors came before him he murmured a word they could not +hear, and touched their foreheads with something that they could +not see. And this something he held in his hands. And through +his fingers they saw the gleam of a red stone that they knew. + +The fight raged across the thorn-hedge outside. Suddenly there +was a loud and bitter cry. + +'They're in! They're in! The hedge is down!' + +The headman disappeared behind the deer-skin curtain. + +'He's gone to hide it,' said Anthea. 'Oh, Psammead dear, how +could you leave us!' + +Suddenly there was a shriek from inside the hut, and the headman +staggered out white with fear and fled out through the maze. The +children were as white as he. + +'Oh! What is it? What is it?' moaned Anthea. 'Oh, Psammead, +how could you! How could you!' + +And the sound of the fight sank breathlessly, and swelled +fiercely all around. It was like the rising and falling of the +waves of the sea. + +Anthea shuddered and said again, 'Oh, Psammead, Psammead!' + +'Well?' said a brisk voice, and the curtain of skins was lifted +at one corner by a furry hand, and out peeped the bat's ears and +snail's eyes of the Psammead. + +Anthea caught it in her arms and a sigh of desperate relief was +breathed by each of the four. + +'Oh! which IS the East!' Anthea said, and she spoke hurriedly, +for the noise of wild fighting drew nearer and nearer. + +'Don't choke me,' said the Psammead, 'come inside.' + +The inside of the hut was pitch dark. + +'I've got a match,' said Cyril, and struck it. The floor of the +hut was of soft, loose sand. + +'I've been asleep here,' said the Psammead; 'most comfortable +it's been, the best sand I've had for a month. It's all right. +Everything's all right. I knew your only chance would be while +the fight was going on. That man won't come back. I bit him, +and he thinks I'm an Evil Spirit. Now you've only got to take +the thing and go.' + +The hut was hung with skins. Heaped in the middle were the +offerings that had been given the night before, Anthea's roses +fading on the top of the heap. At one side of the hut stood a +large square stone block, and on it an oblong box of earthenware +with strange figures of men and beasts on it. + +'Is the thing in there?' asked Cyril, as the Psammead pointed a +skinny finger at it. + +'You must judge of that,' said the Psammead. 'The man was just +going to bury the box in the sand when I jumped out at him and +bit him.' + +'Light another match, Robert,' said Anthea. 'Now, then quick! +which is the East?' + +'Why, where the sun rises, of course!' + +'But someone told us--' + +'Oh! they'll tell you anything!' said the Psammead impatiently, +getting into its bass-bag and wrapping itself in its waterproof +sheet. + +'But we can't see the sun in here, and it isn't rising anyhow,' +said Jane. + +'How you do waste time!' the Psammead said. 'Why, the East's +where the shrine is, of course. THERE!' + +It pointed to the great stone. + +And still the shouting and the clash of stone on metal sounded +nearer and nearer. The children could hear that the headmen had +surrounded the hut to protect their treasure as long as might be +from the enemy. But none dare to come in after the Psammead's +sudden fierce biting of the headman. + +'Now, Jane,' said Cyril, very quickly. 'I'll take the Amulet, +you stand ready to hold up the charm, and be sure you don't let +it go as you come through.' + +He made a step forward, but at that instant a great crackling +overhead ended in a blaze of sunlight. The roof had been broken +in at one side, and great slabs of it were being lifted off by +two spears. As the children trembled and winked in the new +light, large dark hands tore down the wall, and a dark face, with +a blobby fat nose, looked over the gap. Even at that awful +moment Anthea had time to think that it was very like the face of +Mr Jacob Absalom, who had sold them the charm in the shop near +Charing Cross. + +'Here is their Amulet,' cried a harsh, strange voice; 'it is this +that makes them strong to fight and brave to die. And what else +have we here--gods or demons?' + +He glared fiercely at the children, and the whites of his eyes +were very white indeed. He had a wet, red copper knife in his +teeth. There was not a moment to lose. + +'Jane, JANE, QUICK!' cried everyone passionately. + +Jane with trembling hands held up the charm towards the East, and +Cyril spoke the word of power. The Amulet grew to a great arch. +Out beyond it was the glaring Egyptian sky, the broken wall, the +cruel, dark, big-nosed face with the red, wet knife in its +gleaming teeth. Within the arch was the dull, faint, +greeny-brown of London grass and trees. + +'Hold tight, Jane!' Cyril cried, and he dashed through the arch, +dragging Anthea and the Psammead after him. Robert followed, +clutching Jane. And in the ears of each, as they passed through +the arch of the charm, the sound and fury of battle died out +suddenly and utterly, and they heard only the low, dull, +discontented hum of vast London, and the peeking and patting of +the sparrows on the gravel and the voices of the ragged baby +children playing Ring-o'-Roses on the yellow trampled grass. And +the charm was a little charm again in Jane's hand, and there was +the basket with their dinner and the bathbuns lying just where +they had left it. + +'My hat!' said Cyril, drawing a long breath; 'that was something +like an adventure.' + +'It was rather like one, certainly,' said the Psammead. + +They all lay still, breathing in the safe, quiet air of Regent's +Park. + +'We'd better go home at once,' said Anthea presently. 'Old Nurse +will be most frightfully anxious. The sun looks about the same +as it did when we started yesterday. We've been away twenty-four +hours.' 'The buns are quite soft still,' said Cyril, feeling one; +'I suppose the dew kept them fresh.' + +They were not hungry, curiously enough. + +They picked up the dinner-basket and the Psammead-basket, and +went straight home. + +Old Nurse met them with amazement. + +'Well, if ever I did!' she said. 'What's gone wrong? You've +soon tired of your picnic.' + +The children took this to be bitter irony, which means saying the +exact opposite of what you mean in order to make yourself +disagreeable; as when you happen to have a dirty face, and +someone says, 'How nice and clean you look!' + +'We're very sorry,' began Anthea, but old Nurse said-- + +'Oh, bless me, child, I don't care! Please yourselves and you'll +please me. Come in and get your dinners comf'table. I've got a +potato on a-boiling.' + +When she had gone to attend to the potatoes the children looked +at each other. Could it be that old Nurse had so changed that +she no longer cared that they should have been away from home for +twenty-four hours--all night in fact--without any explanation +whatever? + +But the Psammead put its head out of its basket and said-- + +'What's the matter? Don't you understand? You come back through +the charm-arch at the same time as you go through it. This isn't +tomorrow!' 'Is it still yesterday?' asked Jane. + +'No, it's today. The same as it's always been. It wouldn't do +to go mixing up the present and the Past, and cutting bits out of +one to fit into the other.' + +'Then all that adventure took no time at all?' + +'You can call it that if you like,' said the Psammead. 'It took +none of the modern time, anyhow.' + +That evening Anthea carried up a steak for the learned +gentleman's dinner. She persuaded Beatrice, the +maid-of-all-work, who had given her the bangle with the blue +stone, to let her do it. And she stayed and talked to him, by +special invitation, while he ate the dinner. + +She told him the whole adventure, beginning with-- + +'This afternoon we found ourselves on the bank of the River +Nile,' and ending up with, 'And then we remembered how to get +back, and there we were in Regent's Park, and it hadn't taken any +time at all.' + +She did not tell anything about the charm or the Psammead, +because that was forbidden, but the story was quite wonderful +enough even as it was to entrance the learned gentleman. + +'You are a most unusual little girl,' he said. 'Who tells you +all these things?' + +'No one,' said Anthea, 'they just happen.' + +'Make-believe,' he said slowly, as one who recalls and pronounces +a long-forgotten word. + +He sat long after she had left him. At last he roused himself +with a start. + +'I really must take a holiday,' he said; 'my nerves must be all +out of order. I actually have a perfectly distinct impression +that the little girl from the rooms below came in and gave me a +coherent and graphic picture of life as I conceive it to have +been in pre-dynastic Egypt. Strange what tricks the mind will +play! I shall have to be more careful.' + +He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a +mile walk before he went back to his work. + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +THE WAY TO BABYLON + + 'How many miles to Babylon? + Three score and ten! + Can I get there by candle light? + Yes, and back again!' + +Jane was singing to her doll, rocking it to and fro in the house +which she had made for herself and it. The roof of the house was +the dining-table, and the walls were tablecloths and +antimacassars hanging all round, and kept in their places by +books laid on their top ends at the table edge. + +The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. +You know how it is done--with the largest and best tea-tray and +the surface of the stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days +when the stair rods are being cleaned, and the carpet is only +held by the nails at the top. Of course, it is one of the five +or six thoroughly tip-top games that grown-up people are so +unjust to--and old Nurse, though a brick in many respects, was +quite enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot down on the +tobogganing long before any of the performers had had half enough +of it. The tea- tray was taken away, and the baffled party +entered the sitting-room, in exactly the mood not to be pleased +if they could help it. + +So Cyril said, 'What a beastly mess!' + +And Robert added, 'Do shut up, Jane!' + +Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try +another song. 'I'm sick to death of that,' said she. + +It was a wet day, so none of the plans for seeing all the sights +of London that can be seen for nothing could be carried out. +Everyone had been thinking all the morning about the wonderful +adventures of the day before, when Jane had held up the charm and +it had turned into an arch, through which they had walked +straight out of the present time and the Regent's Park into the +land of Egypt eight thousand years ago. The memory of +yesterday's happenings was still extremely fresh and frightening, +so that everyone hoped that no one would suggest another +excursion into the past, for it seemed to all that yesterday's +adventures were quite enough to last for at least a week. Yet +each felt a little anxious that the others should not think it +was afraid, and presently Cyril, who really was not a coward, +began to see that it would not be at all nice if he should have +to think himself one. So he said-- + +'I say--about that charm--Jane--come out. We ought to talk about +it, anyhow.' + +'Oh, if that's all,' said Robert. + +Jane obediently wriggled to the front of her house and sat there. + +She felt for the charm, to make sure that it was still round her +neck. + +'It ISN'T all,' said Cyril, saying much more than he meant +because he thought Robert's tone had been rude--as indeed it had. + +'We ought to go and look for that Amulet. What's the good of +having a first-class charm and keeping it idle, just eating its +head off in the stable.' + +'I'M game for anything, of course,' said Robert; but he added, +with a fine air of chivalry, 'only I don't think the girls are +keen today somehow.' + +'Oh, yes; I am,' said Anthea hurriedly. 'If you think I'm +afraid, I'm not.' + +'I am though,' said Jane heavily; 'I didn't like it, and I won't +go there again--not for anything I won't.' + +'We shouldn't go THERE again, silly,' said Cyril; 'it would be +some other place.' + +'I daresay; a place with lions and tigers in it as likely as +not.' + +Seeing Jane so frightened, made the others feel quite brave. +They said they were certain they ought to go. + +'It's so ungrateful to the Psammead not to,' Anthea added, a +little primly. + +Jane stood up. She was desperate. + +'I won't!' she cried; 'I won't, I won't, I won't! If you make me +I'll scream and I'll scream, and I'll tell old Nurse, and I'll +get her to burn the charm in the kitchen fire. So now, then!' + +You can imagine how furious everyone was with Jane for feeling +what each of them had felt all the morning. In each breast the +same thought arose, 'No one can say it's OUR fault.' And they at +once began to show Jane how angry they all felt that all the +fault was hers. This made them feel quite brave. + + 'Tell-tale tit, its tongue shall be split, + And all the dogs in our town shall have a little bit,' + +sang Robert. + +'It's always the way if you have girls in anything.' Cyril spoke +in a cold displeasure that was worse than Robert's cruel +quotation, and even Anthea said, 'Well, I'M not afraid if I AM a +girl,' which of course, was the most cutting thing of all. + +Jane picked up her doll and faced the others with what is +sometimes called the courage of despair. + +'I don't care,' she said; 'I won't, so there! It's just silly +going to places when you don't want to, and when you don't know +what they're going to be like! You can laugh at me as much as +you like. You're beasts--and I hate you all!' + +With these awful words she went out and banged the door. + +Then the others would not look at each other, and they did not +feel so brave as they had done. + +Cyril took up a book, but it was not interesting to read. Robert +kicked a chair-leg absently. His feet were always eloquent in +moments of emotion. Anthea stood pleating the end of the +tablecloth into folds--she seemed earnestly anxious to get all +the pleats the same size. The sound of Jane's sobs had died +away. + +Suddenly Anthea said, 'Oh! let it be "pax"--poor little +Pussy--you know she's the youngest.' + +'She called us beasts,' said Robert, kicking the chair suddenly. + +'Well, said Cyril, who was subject to passing fits of justice, +'we began, you know. At least you did.' Cyril's justice was +always uncompromising. + +'I'm not going to say I'm sorry if you mean that,' said Robert, +and the chair-leg cracked to the kick he gave as he said it. + +'Oh, do let's,' said Anthea, 'we're three to one, and Mother does +so hate it if we row. Come on. I'll say I'm sorry first, though +I didn't say anything, hardly.' + +'All right, let's get it over,' said Cyril, opening the +door.'Hi--you--Pussy!' + +Far away up the stairs a voice could be heard singing brokenly, +but still defiantly-- + + 'How many miles (sniff) to Babylon? + Three score and ten! (sniff) + Can I get there by candle light? + Yes (sniff), and back again!' + +It was trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea +would not give herself time to think this. She led the way up +the stairs, taking three at a time, and bounded to the level of +Jane, who sat on the top step of all, thumping her doll to the +tune of the song she was trying to sing. + +'I say, Pussy, let it be pax! We're sorry if you are--' + +It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being +the youngest was entitled to this ceremonial. Anthea added a +special apology of her own. + +'I'm sorry if I was a pig, Pussy dear,' she said--'especially +because in my really and truly inside mind I've been feeling a +little as if I'd rather not go into the Past again either. But +then, do think. If we don't go we shan't get the Amulet, and oh, +Pussy, think if we could only get Father and Mother and The Lamb +safe back! We MUST go, but we'll wait a day or two if you like +and then perhaps you'll feel braver.' + +'Raw meat makes you brave, however cowardly you are,' said +Robert, to show that there was now no ill-feeling, 'and +cranberries--that's what Tartars eat, and they're so brave it's +simply awful. I suppose cranberries are only for Christmas time, +but I'll ask old Nurse to let you have your chop very raw if you +like.' + +'I think I could be brave without that,' said Jane hastily; she +hated underdone meat. 'I'll try.' + +At this moment the door of the learned gentleman's room opened, +and he looked out. + +'Excuse me,' he said, in that gentle, polite weary voice of his, +'but was I mistaken in thinking that I caught a familiar word +just now? Were you not singing some old ballad of Babylon?' + +'No,' said Robert, 'at least Jane was singing "How many miles," +but I shouldn't have thought you could have heard the words +for--' + +He would have said, 'for the sniffing,' but Anthea pinched him +just in time. + +'I did not hear ALL the words,' said the learned gentleman. 'I +wonder would you recite them to me?' + +So they all said together-- + + 'How many miles to Babylon? + Three score and ten! + Can I get there by candle light? + Yes, and back again!' + +'I wish one could,' the learned gentleman said with a sigh. + +'Can't you?' asked Jane. + +'Babylon has fallen,' he answered with a sigh. 'You know it was +once a great and beautiful city, and the centre of learning and +Art, and now it is only ruins, and so covered up with earth that +people are not even agreed as to where it once stood.' + +He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look +in them, as though he could see through the staircase window the +splendour and glory of ancient Babylon. + +'I say,' Cyril remarked abruptly. 'You know that charm we showed +you, and you told us how to say the name that's on it?' + +'Yes!' + +'Well, do you think that charm was ever in Babylon?' + +'It's quite possible,' the learned gentleman replied. 'Such +charms have been found in very early Egyptian tombs, yet their +origin has not been accurately determined as Egyptian. They may +have been brought from Asia. Or, supposing the charm to have +been fashioned in Egypt, it might very well have been carried to +Babylon by some friendly embassy, or brought back by the +Babylonish army from some Egyptian campaign as part of the spoils +of war. The inscription may be much later than the charm. Oh +yes! it is a pleasant fancy, that that splendid specimen of yours +was once used amid Babylonish surroundings.' The others looked at +each other, but it was Jane who spoke. + +'Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and +throwing things about?' For she had read the thoughts of the +others by the unerring light of her own fears. + +'The Babylonians were certainly more gentle than the Assyrians,' +said the learned gentleman. 'And they were not savages by any +means. A very high level of culture,' he looked doubtfully at +his audience and went on, 'I mean that they made beautiful +statues and jewellery, and built splendid palaces. And they were +very learned- they had glorious libraries and high towers for the +purpose of astrological and astronomical observation.' + +'Er?' said Robert. + +'I mean for--star-gazing and fortune-telling,' said the learned +gentleman, 'and there were temples and beautiful hanging +gardens--' + +'I'll go to Babylon if you like,' said Jane abruptly, and the +others hastened to say 'Done!' before she should have time to +change her mind. + +'Ah,' said the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, 'one can +go so far in dreams, when one is young.' He sighed again, and +then adding with a laboured briskness, 'I hope you'll have +a--a--jolly game,' he went into his room and shut the door. + +'He said "jolly" as if it was a foreign language,' said Cyril. +'Come on, let's get the Psammead and go now. I think Babylon +seems a most frightfully jolly place to go to.' + +So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag with the +waterproof sheet, in case of inclement weather in Babylon. It +was very cross, but it said it would as soon go to Babylon as +anywhere else. 'The sand is good thereabouts,' it added. + +Then Jane held up the charm, and Cyril said-- + +'We want to go to Babylon to look for the part of you that was +lost. Will you please let us go there through you?' + +'Please put us down just outside,' said Jane hastily; 'and then +if we don't like it we needn't go inside.' + +'Don't be all day,' said the Psammead. + +So Anthea hastily uttered the word of power, without which the +charm could do nothing. + +'Ur--Hekau--Setcheh!' she said softly, and as she spoke the charm +grew into an arch so tall that the top of it was close against +the bedroom ceiling. Outside the arch was the bedroom painted +chest-of-drawers and the Kidderminster carpet, and the +washhand-stand with the riveted willow-pattern jug, and the faded +curtains, and the dull light of indoors on a wet day. Through +the arch showed the gleam of soft green leaves and white +blossoms. They stepped forward quite happily. Even Jane felt +that this did not look like lions, and her hand hardly trembled +at all as she held the charm for the others to go through, and +last, slipped through herself, and hung the charm, now grown +small again, round her neck. + +The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, +green-leafed fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such +trees, all white-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long +green grass under their feet grew crocuses and lilies, and +strange blue flowers. In the branches overhead thrushes and +blackbirds were singing, and the coo of a pigeon came softly to +them in the green quietness of the orchard. + +'Oh, how perfectly lovely!' cried Anthea. + +'Why, it's like home exactly--I mean England--only everything's +bluer, and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.' + +The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane +admitted that it was all very pretty. + +'I'm certain there's nothing to be frightened of here,' said +Anthea. + +'I don't know,' said Jane. 'I suppose the fruit-trees go on just +the same even when people are killing each other. I didn't half +like what the learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens. +I suppose they have gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do +hope this isn't one.' + +'Of course it isn't,' said Cyril. 'The hanging gardens are just +gardens hung up--_I_ think on chains between houses, don't you +know, like trays. Come on; let's get somewhere.' + +They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could +see was nothing but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end +of their orchard was another one, only separated from theirs by a +little stream of clear water. They jumped this, and went on. +Cyril, who was fond of gardening--which meant that he liked to +watch the gardener at work--was able to command the respect of +the others by telling them the names of a good many trees. There +were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots, and fig-trees with +their big five-fingered leaves. And every now and then the +children had to cross another brook. + +'It's like between the squares in Through the Looking-glass,' +said Anthea. + +At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from +the other orchards. It had a low building in one corner. + +'These are vines,' said Cyril superiorly, 'and I know this is a +vineyard. I shouldn't wonder if there was a wine-press inside +that place over there.' + +At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, +very rough, and not at all like the roads you are used to. It +had cypress trees and acacia trees along it, and a sort of hedge +of tamarisks, like those you see on the road between Nice and +Cannes, or near Littlehampton, if you've only been as far as +that. + +And now in front of them they could see a great mass of +buildings. There were scattered houses of wood and stone here +and there among green orchards, and beyond these a great wall +that shone red in the early morning sun. The wall was enormously +high--more than half the height of St Paul's--and in the wall +were set enormous gates that shone like gold as the rising sun +beat on them. Each gate had a solid square tower on each side of +it that stood out from the wall and rose above it. Beyond the +wall were more towers and houses, gleaming with gold and bright +colours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue swirl of a great +river. And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, +that the river flowed out from the town under a great arch in the +wall. + +'Those feathery things along by the water are palms,' said Cyril +instructively. + +'Oh, yes; you know everything,' Robert replied. 'What's all that +grey-green stuff you see away over there, where it's all flat and +sandy?' + +'All right,' said Cyril loftily, '_I_ don't want to tell you +anything. I only thought you'd like to know a palm-tree when you +saw it again.' + +'Look!' cried Anthea; 'they're opening the gates.' + +And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and +instantly a little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and +along the road towards them. + +The children, with one accord, crouched behind the tamarisk +hedge. + +'I don't like the sound of those gates,' said Jane. 'Fancy being +inside when they shut. You'd never get out.' + +'You've got an arch of your own to go out by,' the Psammead put +its head out of the basket to remind her. 'Don't behave so like +a girl. If I were you I should just march right into the town +and ask to see the king.' + +There was something at once simple and grand about this idea, and +it pleased everyone. + +So when the work-people had passed (they WERE work-people, the +children felt sure, because they were dressed so plainly--just +one long blue shirt thing--of blue or yellow) the four children +marched boldly up to the brazen gate between the towers. The +arch above the gate was quite a tunnel, the walls were so thick. + +'Courage,' said Cyril. 'Step out. It's no use trying to sneak +past. Be bold!' + +Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into 'The +British Grenadiers', and to its quick-step they approached the +gates of Babylon. + + 'Some talk of Alexander, + And some of Hercules, + Of Hector and Lysander, + And such great names as these. + But of all the gallant heroes ...' + +This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in +bright armour suddenly barred their way with crossed spears. + +'Who goes there?' they said. + +(I think I must have explained to you before how it was that the +children were always able to understand the language of any place +they might happen to be in, and to be themselves understood. If +not, I have no time to explain it now.) + +'We come from very far,' said Cyril mechanically. 'From the +Empire where the sun never sets, and we want to see your King.' + +'If it's quite convenient,' amended Anthea. 'The King (may he +live for ever!),' said the gatekeeper, 'is gone to fetch home his +fourteenth wife. Where on earth have you come from not to know +that?' + +'The Queen then,' said Anthea hurriedly, and not taking any +notice of the question as to where they had come from. + +'The Queen,' said the gatekeeper, '(may she live for ever!) gives +audience today three hours after sunrising.' + +'But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?' asked +Cyril. + +The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared +less interested in them than they could have thought possible. +But the man who had crossed spears with him to bar the children's +way was more human. + +'Let them go in and look about them,' he said. 'I'll wager my +best sword they've never seen anything to come near our +little--village.' He said it in the tone people use for when they +call the Atlantic Ocean the 'herring pond'. + +The gatekeeper hesitated. + +'They're only children, after all,' said the other, who had +children of his own. 'Let me off for a few minutes, Captain, and +I'll take them to my place and see if my good woman can't fit +them up in something a little less outlandish than their present +rig. Then they can have a look round without being mobbed. May +I go?' + +'Oh yes, if you like,' said the Captain, 'but don't be all day.' + +The man led them through the dark arch into the town. And it was +very different from London. For one thing, everything in London +seems to be patched up out of odds and ends, but these houses +seemed to have been built by people who liked the same sort of +things. Not that they were all alike, for though all were +squarish, they were of different sizes, and decorated in all +sorts of different ways, some with paintings in bright colours, +some with black and silver designs. There were terraces, and +gardens, and balconies, and open spaces with trees. Their guide +took them to a little house in a back street, where a kind-faced +woman sat spinning at the door of a very dark room. + +'Here,' he said, 'just lend these children a mantle each, so that +they can go about and see the place till the Queen's audience +begins. You leave that wool for a bit, and show them round if +you like. I must be off now.' + +The woman did as she was told, and the four children, wrapped in +fringed mantles, went with her all about the town, and oh! how I +wish I had time to tell you all that they saw. It was all so +wonderfully different from anything you have ever seen. For one +thing, all the houses were dazzlingly bright, and many of them +covered with pictures. Some had great creatures carved in stone +at each side of the door. Then the people--there were no black +frock-coats and tall hats; no dingy coats and skirts of good, +useful, ugly stuffs warranted to wear. Everyone's clothes were +bright and beautiful with blue and scarlet and green and gold. + +The market was brighter than you would think anything could be. +There were stalls for everything you could possibly want--and for +a great many things that if you wanted here and now, want would +be your master. There were pineapples and peaches in heaps--and +stalls of crockery and glass things, beautiful shapes and +glorious colours, there were stalls for necklaces, and clasps, +and bracelets, and brooches, for woven stuffs, and furs, and +embroidered linen. The children had never seen half so many +beautiful things together, even at Liberty's. It seemed no time +at all before the woman said-- + +'It's nearly time now. We ought to be getting on towards the +palace. It's as well to be early.' So they went to the palace, +and when they got there it was more splendid than anything they +had seen yet. + +For it was glowing with colours, and with gold and silver and +black and white--like some magnificent embroidery. Flight after +flight of broad marble steps led up to it, and at the edges of +the stairs stood great images, twenty times as big as a +man--images of men with wings like chain armour, and hawks' +heads, and winged men with the heads of dogs. And there were the +statues of great kings. + +Between the flights of steps were terraces where fountains +played, and the Queen's Guard in white and scarlet, and armour +that shone like gold, stood by twos lining the way up the stairs; +and a great body of them was massed by the vast door of the +palace itself, where it stood glittering like an impossibly +radiant peacock in the noon-day sun. + +All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of +the Queen. Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy +flounces, poor folks in plain and simple clothes, dandies with +beards oiled and curled. + +And Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane, went with the crowd. + +At the gate of the palace the Psammead put one eye cautiously out +of the basket and whispered-- + +'I can't be bothered with queens. I'll go home with this lady. +I'm sure she'll get me some sand if you ask her to.' + +'Oh! don't leave us,' said Jane. The woman was giving some last +instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane. + +'Don't be a little muff,' said the Psammead quite fiercely. +'It's not a bit of good your having a charm. You never use it. +If you want me you've only got to say the name of power and ask +the charm to bring me to you.' + +'I'd rather go with you,' said Jane. And it was the most +surprising thing she had ever said in her life. + +Everyone opened its mouth without thinking of manners, and +Anthea, who was peeping into the Psammead's basket, saw that its +mouth opened wider than anybody's. + +'You needn't gawp like that,' Jane went on. 'I'm not going to be +bothered with queens any more than IT is. And I know, wherever +it is, it'll take jolly good care that it's safe.' + +'She's right there,' said everyone, for they had observed that +the Psammead had a way of knowing which side its bread was +buttered. + +She turned to the woman and said, 'You'll take me home with you, +won't you? And let me play with your little girls till the +others have done with the Queen.' + +'Surely I will, little heart!' said the woman. + +And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, +who took the woman's hand, and trotted contentedly away with the +Psammead's bag under the other arm. + +The others stood looking after her till she, the woman, and the +basket were lost in the many-coloured crowd. Then Anthea turned +once more to the palace's magnificent doorway and said-- + +'Let's ask the porter to take care of our Babylonian overcoats.' + +So they took off the garments that the woman had lent them and +stood amid the jostling petitioners of the Queen in their own +English frocks and coats and hats and boots. + +'We want to see the Queen,' said Cyril; 'we come from the far +Empire where the sun never sets!' + +A murmur of surprise and a thrill of excitement ran through the +crowd. The door-porter spoke to a black man, he spoke to someone +else. There was a whispering, waiting pause. Then a big man, +with a cleanly-shaven face, beckoned them from the top of a +flight of red marble steps. + +They went up; the boots of Robert clattering more than usual +because he was so nervous. A door swung open, a curtain was +drawn back. A double line of bowing forms in gorgeous raiment +formed a lane that led to the steps of the throne, and as the +children advanced hurriedly there came from the throne a voice +very sweet and kind. + +'Three children from the land where the sun never sets! Let them +draw hither without fear.' + +In another minute they were kneeling at the throne's foot, +saying, 'O Queen, live for ever!' exactly as the woman had taught +them. And a splendid dream-lady, all gold and silver and jewels +and snowy drift of veils, was raising Anthea, and saying-- + +'Don't be frightened, I really am SO glad you came! The land +where the sun never sets! I am delighted to see you! I was +getting quite too dreadfully bored for anything!' + +And behind Anthea the kneeling Cyril whispered in the ears of the +respectful Robert-- + +'Bobs, don't say anything to Panther. It's no use upsetting her, +but we didn't ask for Jane's address, and the Psammead's with +her.' + +'Well,' whispered Robert, 'the charm can bring them to us at any +moment. IT said so.' + +'Oh, yes,' whispered Cyril, in miserable derision, 'WE'RE all +right, of course. So we are! Oh, yes! If we'd only GOT the +charm.' + +Then Robert saw, and he murmured, 'Crikey!' at the foot of the +throne of Babylon; while Cyril hoarsely whispered the plain +English fact-- + +'Jane's got the charm round her neck, you silly cuckoo.' + +'Crikey!' Robert repeated in heart-broken undertones. + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +'THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT' + +The Queen threw three of the red and gold embroidered cushions +off the throne on to the marble steps that led up to it. + +'Just make yourselves comfortable there,' she said. 'I'm simply +dying to talk to you, and to hear all about your wonderful +country and how you got here, and everything, but I have to do +justice every morning. Such a bore, isn't it? Do you do justice +in your own country?' + +'No, said Cyril; 'at least of course we try to, but not in this +public sort of way, only in private.' 'Ah, yes,' said the Queen, +'I should much prefer a private audience myself--much easier to +manage. But public opinion has to be considered. Doing justice +is very hard work, even when you're brought up to it.' + +'We don't do justice, but we have to do scales, Jane and me,' +said Anthea, 'twenty minutes a day. It's simply horrid.' + +'What are scales?' asked the Queen, 'and what is Jane?' + +'Jane is my little sister. One of the guards-at-the-gate's wife +is taking care of her. And scales are music.' + +'I never heard of the instrument,' said the Queen. 'Do you +sing?' + +'Oh, yes. We can sing in parts,' said Anthea. + +'That IS magic,' said the Queen. 'How many parts are you each +cut into before you do it?' + +'We aren't cut at all,' said Robert hastily. 'We couldn't sing +if we were. We'll show you afterwards.' + +'So you shall, and now sit quiet like dear children and hear me +do justice. The way I do it has always been admired. I oughtn't +to say that ought I? Sounds so conceited. But I don't mind with +you, dears. Somehow I feel as though I'd known you quite a long +time already.' + +The Queen settled herself on her throne and made a signal to her +attendants. The children, whispering together among the cushions +on the steps of the throne, decided that she was very beautiful +and very kind, but perhaps just the least bit flighty. + +The first person who came to ask for justice was a woman whose +brother had taken the money the father had left for her. The +brother said it was the uncle who had the money. There was a +good deal of talk and the children were growing rather bored, +when the Queen suddenly clapped her hands, and said-- + +'Put both the men in prison till one of them owns up that the +other is innocent.' + +'But suppose they both did it?' Cyril could not help +interrupting. + +'Then prison's the best place for them,' said the Queen. + +'But suppose neither did it.' + +'That's impossible,' said the Queen; 'a thing's not done unless +someone does it. And you mustn't interrupt.' + +Then came a woman, in tears, with a torn veil and real ashes on +her head--at least Anthea thought so, but it may have been only +road-dust. She complained that her husband was in prison. + +'What for?' said the Queen. + +'They SAID it was for speaking evil of your Majesty,' said the +woman, 'but it wasn't. Someone had a spite against him. That +was what it was.' + +'How do you know he hadn't spoken evil of me?' said the Queen. + +'No one could,' said the woman simply, 'when they'd once seen +your beautiful face.' + +'Let the man out,' said the Queen, smiling. 'Next case.' + +The next case was that of a boy who had stolen a fox. 'Like the +Spartan boy,' whispered Robert. But the Queen ruled that nobody +could have any possible reason for owning a fox, and still less +for stealing one. And she did not believe that there were any +foxes in Babylon; she, at any rate, had never seen one. So the +boy was released. + +The people came to the Queen about all sorts of family quarrels +and neighbourly misunderstandings--from a fight between brothers +over the division of an inheritance, to the dishonest and +unfriendly conduct of a woman who had borrowed a cooking-pot at +the last New Year's festival, and not returned it yet. + +And the Queen decided everything, very, very decidedly indeed. +At last she clapped her hands quite suddenly and with extreme +loudness, and said-- + +'The audience is over for today.' + +Everyone said, 'May the Queen live for ever!' and went out. + +And the children were left alone in the justice-hall with the +Queen of Babylon and her ladies. + +'There!' said the Queen, with a long sigh of relief. 'THAT'S +over! I couldn't have done another stitch of justice if you'd +offered me the crown of Egypt! Now come into the garden, and +we'll have a nice, long, cosy talk.' + +She led them through long, narrow corridors whose walls they +somehow felt, were very, very thick, into a sort of garden +courtyard. There were thick shrubs closely planted, and roses +were trained over trellises, and made a pleasant shade--needed, +indeed, for already the sun was as hot as it is in England in +August at the seaside. + +Slaves spread cushions on a low, marble terrace, and a big man +with a smooth face served cool drink in cups of gold studded with +beryls. He drank a little from the Queen's cup before handing it +to her. + +'That's rather a nasty trick,' whispered Robert, who had been +carefully taught never to drink out of one of the nice, shiny, +metal cups that are chained to the London drinking fountains +without first rinsing it out thoroughly. + +The Queen overheard him. + +'Not at all,' said she. 'Ritti-Marduk is a very clean man. And +one has to have SOME ONE as taster, you know, because of poison.' + +The word made the children feel rather creepy; but Ritti-Marduk +had tasted all the cups, so they felt pretty safe. The drink was +delicious--very cold, and tasting like lemonade and partly like +penny ices. + +'Leave us,' said the Queen. And all the Court ladies, in their +beautiful, many-folded, many-coloured, fringed dresses, filed out +slowly, and the children were left alone with the Queen. + +'Now,' she said, 'tell me all about yourselves.' + +They looked at each other. + +'You, Bobs,' said Cyril. + +'No--Anthea,' said Robert. + +'No--you--Cyril,' said Anthea. 'Don't you remember how pleased +the Queen of India was when you told her all about us?' + +Cyril muttered that it was all very well, and so it was. For +when he had told the tale of the Phoenix and the Carpet to the +Ranee, it had been only the truth--and all the truth that he had +to tell. But now it was not easy to tell a convincing story +without mentioning the Amulet--which, of course, it wouldn't have +done to mention--and without owning that they were really living +in London, about 2,500 years later than the time they were +talking in. + +Cyril took refuge in the tale of the Psammead and its wonderful +power of making wishes come true. The children had never been +able to tell anyone before, and Cyril was surprised to find that +the spell which kept them silent in London did not work here. +'Something to do with our being in the Past, I suppose,' he said +to himself. + +'This is MOST interesting,' said the Queen. 'We must have this +Psammead for the banquet tonight. Its performance will be one of +the most popular turns in the whole programme. Where is it?' + +Anthea explained that they did not know; also why it was that +they did not know. + +'Oh, THAT'S quite simple,' said the Queen, and everyone breathed +a deep sigh of relief as she said it. + +'Ritti-Marduk shall run down to the gates and find out which +guard your sister went home with.' + +'Might he'--Anthea's voice was tremulous--'might he--would it +interfere with his meal-times, or anything like that, if he went +NOW?' + +'Of course he shall go now. He may think himself lucky if he +gets his meals at any time,' said the Queen heartily, and clapped +her hands. + +'May I send a letter?' asked Cyril, pulling out a red-backed +penny account-book, and feeling in his pockets for a stump of +pencil that he knew was in one of them. + +'By all means. I'll call my scribe.' + +'Oh, I can scribe right enough, thanks,' said Cyril, finding the +pencil and licking its point. He even had to bite the wood a +little, for it was very blunt. + +'Oh, you clever, clever boy!' said the Queen. 'DO let me watch +you do it!' + +Cyril wrote on a leaf of the book--it was of rough, woolly paper, +with hairs that stuck out and would have got in his pen if he had +been using one, and ruled for accounts. + +'Hide IT most carefully before you come here,' he wrote, 'and +don't mention it--and destroy this letter. Everything is going +A1. The Queen is a fair treat. There's nothing to be afraid +of.' + +'What curious characters, and what a strange flat surface!' said +the Queen. 'What have you inscribed?' + +'I've 'scribed,' replied Cyril cautiously, 'that you are fair, +and a--and like a--like a festival; and that she need not be +afraid, and that she is to come at once.' + +Ritti-Marduk, who had come in and had stood waiting while Cyril +wrote, his Babylonish eyes nearly starting out of his Babylonish +head, now took the letter, with some reluctance. + +'O Queen, live for ever! Is it a charm?' he timidly asked. 'A +strong charm, most great lady?' + +'YES,' said Robert, unexpectedly, 'it IS a charm, but it won't +hurt anyone until you've given it to Jane. And then she'll +destroy it, so that it CAN'T hurt anyone. It's most awful +strong!--as strong as--Peppermint!' he ended abruptly. + +'I know not the god,' said Ritti-Marduk, bending timorously. + +'She'll tear it up directly she gets it,' said Robert, 'That'll +end the charm. You needn't be afraid if you go now.' + +Ritti-Marduk went, seeming only partly satisfied; and then the +Queen began to admire the penny account-book and the bit of +pencil in so marked and significant a way that Cyril felt he +could not do less than press them upon her as a gift. She +ruffled the leaves delightedly. + +'What a wonderful substance!' she said. 'And with this style you +make charms? Make a charm for me! Do you know,' her voice sank +to a whisper, 'the names of the great ones of your own far +country?' + +'Rather!' said Cyril, and hastily wrote the names of Alfred the +Great, Shakespeare, Nelson, Gordon, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr Rudyard +Kipling, and Mr Sherlock Holmes, while the Queen watched him with +'unbaited breath', as Anthea said afterwards. + +She took the book and hid it reverently among the bright folds of +her gown. + +'You shall teach me later to say the great names,' she said. +'And the names of their Ministers--perhaps the great Nisroch is +one of them?' + +'I don't think so,' said Cyril. 'Mr Campbell Bannerman's Prime +Minister and Mr Burns a Minister, and so is the Archbishop of +Canterbury, I think, but I'm not sure--and Dr Parker was one, I +know, and--' + +'No more,' said the Queen, putting her hands to her ears. 'My +head's going round with all those great names. You shall teach +them to me later--because of course you'll make us a nice long +visit now you have come, won't you? Now tell me--but no, I am +quite tired out with your being so clever. Besides, I'm sure +you'd like ME to tell YOU something, wouldn't you?' + +'Yes,' said Anthea. 'I want to know how it is that the King has +gone--' + +'Excuse me, but you should say "the King may-he-live-for-ever",' +said the Queen gently. + +'I beg your pardon,' Anthea hastened to say--'the King +may-he-live-for-ever has gone to fetch home his fourteenth wife? +I don't think even Bluebeard had as many as that. And, besides, +he hasn't killed YOU at any rate.' + +The Queen looked bewildered. + +'She means,' explained Robert, 'that English kings only have one +wife--at least, Henry the Eighth had seven or eight, but not all +at once.' + +'In our country,' said the Queen scornfully, 'a king would not +reign a day who had only one wife. No one would respect him, and +quite right too.' + +'Then are all the other thirteen alive?' asked Anthea. + +'Of course they are--poor mean-spirited things! I don't +associate with them, of course, I am the Queen: they're only the +wives.' + +'I see,' said Anthea, gasping. + +'But oh, my dears,' the Queen went on, 'such a to-do as there's +been about this last wife! You never did! It really was TOO +funny. We wanted an Egyptian princess. The King +may-he-live-for-ever has got a wife from most of the important +nations, and he had set his heart on an Egyptian one to complete +his collection. Well, of course, to begin with, we sent a +handsome present of gold. The Egyptian king sent back some +horses--quite a few; he's fearfully stingy!--and he said he liked +the gold very much, but what they were really short of was lapis +lazuli, so of course we sent him some. But by that time he'd +begun to use the gold to cover the beams of the roof of the +Temple of the Sun-God, and he hadn't nearly enough to finish the +job, so we sent some more. And so it went on, oh, for years. +You see each journey takes at least six months. And at last we +asked the hand of his daughter in marriage.' + +'Yes, and then?' said Anthea, who wanted to get to the princess +part of the story. + +'Well, then,' said the Queen, 'when he'd got everything out of us +that he could, and only given the meanest presents in return, he +sent to say he would esteem the honour of an alliance very +highly, only unfortunately he hadn't any daughter, but he hoped +one would be born soon, and if so, she should certainly be +reserved for the King of Babylon!' + +'What a trick!' said Cyril. + +'Yes, wasn't it? So then we said his sister would do, and then +there were more gifts and more journeys; and now at last the +tiresome, black-haired thing is coming, and the King +may-he-live-for-ever has gone seven days' journey to meet her at +Carchemish. And he's gone in his best chariot, the one inlaid +with lapis lazuli and gold, with the gold-plated wheels and +onyx-studded hubs--much too great an honour in my opinion. +She'll be here tonight; there'll be a grand banquet to celebrate +her arrival. SHE won't be present, of course. She'll be having +her baths and her anointings, and all that sort of thing. We +always clean our foreign brides very carefully. It takes two or +three weeks. Now it's dinnertime, and you shall eat with me, for +I can see that you are of high rank.' She led them into a dark, +cool hall, with many cushions on the floor. On these they sat +and low tables were brought--beautiful tables of smooth, blue +stone mounted in gold. On these, golden trays were placed; but +there were no knives, or forks, or spoons. The children expected +the Queen to call for them; but no. She just ate with her +fingers, and as the first dish was a great tray of boiled corn, +and meat and raisins all mixed up together, and melted fat poured +all over the tray, it was found difficult to follow her example +with anything like what we are used to think of as good table +manners. There were stewed quinces afterwards, and dates in +syrup, and thick yellowy cream. It was the kind of dinner you +hardly ever get in Fitzroy Street. + +After dinner everybody went to sleep, even the children. + +The Queen awoke with a start. + +'Good gracious!' she cried, 'what a time we've slept! I must +rush off and dress for the banquet. I shan't have much more than +time.' + +'Hasn't Ritti-Marduk got back with our sister and the Psammead +yet?' Anthea asked. + +'I QUITE forgot to ask. I'm sorry,' said the Queen. 'And of +course they wouldn't announce her unless I told them to, except +during justice hours. I expect she's waiting outside. I'll +see.' + +Ritti-Marduk came in a moment later. + +'I regret,' he said, 'that I have been unable to find your +sister. The beast she bears with her in a basket has bitten the +child of the guard, and your sister and the beast set out to come +to you. The police say they have a clue. No doubt we shall have +news of her in a few weeks.' He bowed and withdrew. + +The horror of this threefold loss--Jane, the Psammead, and the +Amulet--gave the children something to talk about while the Queen +was dressing. I shall not report their conversation; it was very +gloomy. Everyone repeated himself several times, and the +discussion ended in each of them blaming the other two for having +let Jane go. You know the sort of talk it was, don't you? At +last Cyril said-- + +'After all, she's with the Psammead, so SHE'S all right. The +Psammead is jolly careful of itself too. And it isn't as if we +were in any danger. Let's try to buck up and enjoy the banquet.' + +They did enjoy the banquet. They had a beautiful bath, which was +delicious, were heavily oiled all over, including their hair, and +that was most unpleasant. Then, they dressed again and were +presented to the King, who was most affable. The banquet was +long; there were all sorts of nice things to eat, and everybody +seemed to eat and drink a good deal. Everyone lay on cushions +and couches, ladies on one side and gentlemen on the other; and +after the eating was done each lady went and sat by some +gentleman, who seemed to be her sweetheart or her husband, for +they were very affectionate to each other. The Court dresses had +gold threads woven in them, very bright and beautiful. + +The middle of the room was left clear, and different people came +and did amusing things. There were conjurers and jugglers and +snake-charmers, which last Anthea did not like at all. + +When it got dark torches were lighted. Cedar splinters dipped in +oil blazed in copper dishes set high on poles. + +Then there was a dancer, who hardly danced at all, only just +struck attitudes. She had hardly any clothes, and was not at all +pretty. The children were rather bored by her, but everyone else +was delighted, including the King. + +'By the beard of Nimrod!' he cried, 'ask what you like girl, and +you shall have it!' + +'I want nothing,' said the dancer; 'the honour of having pleased +the King may-he-live-for-ever is reward enough for me.' + +And the King was so pleased with this modest and sensible reply +that he gave her the gold collar off his own neck. + +'I say!' said Cyril, awed by the magnificence of the gift. + +'It's all right,' whispered the Queen, 'it's not his best collar +by any means. We always keep a stock of cheap jewellery for +these occasions. And now--you promised to sing us something. +Would you like my minstrels to accompany you?' + +'No, thank you,' said Anthea quickly. The minstrels had been +playing off and on all the time, and their music reminded Anthea +of the band she and the others had once had on the fifth of +November--with penny horns, a tin whistle, a tea-tray, the tongs, +a policeman's rattle, and a toy drum. They had enjoyed this band +very much at the time. But it was quite different when someone +else was making the same kind of music. Anthea understood now +that Father had not been really heartless and unreasonable when +he had told them to stop that infuriating din. + +'What shall we sing?' Cyril was asking. + +'Sweet and low?' suggested Anthea. + +'Too soft--I vote for "Who will o'er the downs". Now then--one, +two, three. + + 'Oh, who will o'er the downs so free, + Oh, who will with me ride, + Oh, who will up and follow me, + To win a blooming bride? + + Her father he has locked the door, + Her mother keeps the key; + But neither bolt nor bar shall keep + My own true love from me.' + +Jane, the alto, was missing, and Robert, unlike the mother of the +lady in the song, never could 'keep the key', but the song, even +so, was sufficiently unlike anything any of them had ever heard +to rouse the Babylonian Court to the wildest enthusiasm. + +'More, more,' cried the King; 'by my beard, this savage music is +a new thing. Sing again!' + +So they sang: + + 'I saw her bower at twilight gray, + 'Twas guarded safe and sure. + I saw her bower at break of day, + 'Twas guarded then no more. + + The varlets they were all asleep, + And there was none to see + The greeting fair that passed there + Between my love and me.' + +Shouts of applause greeted the ending of the verse, and the King +would not be satisfied till they had sung all their part-songs +(they only knew three) twice over, and ended up with 'Men of +Harlech' in unison. Then the King stood up in his royal robes +with his high, narrow crown on his head and shouted-- + +'By the beak of Nisroch, ask what you will, strangers from the +land where the sun never sets!' + +'We ought to say it's enough honour, like the dancer did,' +whispered Anthea + +'No, let's ask for IT,' said Robert. + +'No, no, I'm sure the other's manners,' said Anthea. But Robert, +who was excited by the music, and the flaring torches, and the +applause and the opportunity, spoke up before the others could +stop him. + +'Give us the half of the Amulet that has on it the name UR HEKAU +SETCHEH,' he said, adding as an afterthought, 'O King, +live-for-ever.' + +As he spoke the great name those in the pillared hall fell on +their faces, and lay still. All but the Queen who crouched amid +her cushions with her head in her hands, and the King, who stood +upright, perfectly still, like the statue of a king in stone. It +was only for a moment though. Then his great voice thundered +out-- + +'Guard, seize them!' + +Instantly, from nowhere as it seemed, sprang eight soldiers in +bright armour inlaid with gold, and tunics of red and white. +Very splendid they were, and very alarming. + +'Impious and sacrilegious wretches!' shouted the King. 'To the +dungeons with them! We will find a way, tomorrow, to make them +speak. For without doubt they can tell us where to find the lost +half of It.' + +A wall of scarlet and white and steel and gold closed up round +the children and hurried them away among the many pillars of the +great hall. As they went they heard the voices of the courtiers +loud in horror. + +'You've done it this time,' said Cyril with extreme bitterness. + +'Oh, it will come right. It MUST. It always does,' said Anthea +desperately. + +They could not see where they were going, because the guard +surrounded them so closely, but the ground under their feet, +smooth marble at first, grew rougher like stone, then it was +loose earth and sand, and they felt the night air. Then there +was more stone, and steps down. + +'It's my belief we really ARE going to the deepest dungeon below +the castle moat this time,' said Cyril. + +And they were. At least it was not below a moat, but below the +river Euphrates, which was just as bad if not worse. In a most +unpleasant place it was. Dark, very, very damp, and with an odd, +musty smell rather like the shells of oysters. There was a +torch--that is to say, a copper basket on a high stick with oiled +wood burning in it. By its light the children saw that the walls +were green, and that trickles of water ran down them and dripped +from the roof. There were things on the floor that looked like +newts, and in the dark corners creepy, shiny things moved +sluggishly, uneasily, horribly. + +Robert's heart sank right into those really reliable boots of +his. Anthea and Cyril each had a private struggle with that +inside disagreeableness which is part of all of us, and which is +sometimes called the Old Adam--and both were victors. Neither of +them said to Robert (and both tried hard not even to think it), +'This is YOUR doing.' Anthea had the additional temptation to +add, 'I told you so.' And she resisted it successfully. + +'Sacrilege, and impious cheek,' said the captain of the guard to +the gaoler. 'To be kept during the King's pleasure. I expect he +means to get some pleasure out of them tomorrow! He'll tickle +them up!' + +'Poor little kids,' said the gaoler. + +'Oh, yes,' said the captain. 'I've got kids of my own too. But +it doesn't do to let domestic sentiment interfere with one's +public duties. Good night.' + +The soldiers tramped heavily off in their white and red and steel +and gold. The gaoler, with a bunch of big keys in his hand, +stood looking pityingly at the children. He shook his head twice +and went out. + +'Courage!' said Anthea. 'I know it will be all right. It's only +a dream REALLY, you know. It MUST be! I don't believe about +time being only a something or other of thought. It IS a dream, +and we're bound to wake up all right and safe.' + +'Humph,' said Cyril bitterly. And Robert suddenly said-- + +'It's all my doing. If it really IS all up do please not keep a +down on me about it, and tell Father-- Oh, I forgot.' + +What he had forgotten was that his father was 3,000 miles and +5,000 or more years away from him. + +'All right, Bobs, old man,' said Cyril; and Anthea got hold of +Robert's hand and squeezed it. + +Then the gaoler came back with a platter of hard, flat cakes made +of coarse grain, very different from the cream-and-juicy-date +feasts of the palace; also a pitcher of water. + +'There,' he said. + +'Oh, thank you so very much. You ARE kind,' said Anthea +feverishly. + +'Go to sleep,' said the gaoler, pointing to a heap of straw in a +corner; 'tomorrow comes soon enough.' + +'Oh, dear Mr Gaoler,' said Anthea, 'whatever will they do to us +tomorrow?' + +'They'll try to make you tell things,' said the gaoler grimly, +'and my advice is if you've nothing to tell, make up something. +Then perhaps they'll sell you to the Northern nations. Regular +savages THEY are. Good night.' + +'Good night,' said three trembling voices, which their owners +strove in vain to render firm. Then he went out, and the three +were left alone in the damp, dim vault. + +'I know the light won't last long,' said Cyril, looking at the +flickering brazier. + +'Is it any good, do you think, calling on the name when we +haven't got the charm?' suggested Anthea. + +'I shouldn't think so. But we might try.' + +So they tried. But the blank silence of the damp dungeon +remained unchanged. + +'What was the name the Queen said?' asked Cyril suddenly. +'Nisbeth--Nesbit--something? You know, the slave of the great +names?' + +'Wait a sec,' said Robert, 'though I don't know why you want it. +Nusroch--Nisrock--Nisroch--that's it.' + +Then Anthea pulled herself together. All her muscles tightened, +and the muscles of her mind and soul, if you can call them that, +tightened too. + +'UR HEKAU SETCHEH,' she cried in a fervent voice. 'Oh, Nisroch, +servant of the Great Ones, come and help us!' + +There was a waiting silence. Then a cold, blue light awoke in +the corner where the straw was--and in the light they saw coming +towards them a strange and terrible figure. I won't try to +describe it, because the drawing shows it, exactly as it was, and +exactly as the old Babylonians carved it on their stones, so that +you can see it in our own British Museum at this day. I will +just say that it had eagle's wings and an eagle's head and the +body of a man. + +It came towards them, strong and unspeakably horrible. + +'Oh, go away,' cried Anthea; but Cyril cried, 'No; stay!' + +The creature hesitated, then bowed low before them on the damp +floor of the dungeon. + +'Speak,' it said, in a harsh, grating voice like large rusty keys +being turned in locks. 'The servant of the Great Ones is YOUR +servant. What is your need that you call on the name of +Nisroch?' + +'We want to go home,' said Robert. + +'No, no,' cried Anthea; 'we want to be where Jane is.' + +Nisroch raised his great arm and pointed at the wall of the +dungeon. And, as he pointed, the wall disappeared, and instead +of the damp, green, rocky surface, there shone and glowed a room +with rich hangings of red silk embroidered with golden +water-lilies, with cushioned couches and great mirrors of +polished steel; and in it was the Queen, and before her, on a red +pillow, sat the Psammead, its fur hunched up in an irritated, +discontented way. On a blue-covered couch lay Jane fast asleep. + +'Walk forward without fear,' said Nisroch. 'Is there aught else +that the Servant of the great Name can do for those who speak +that name?' + +'No--oh, no,' said Cyril. 'It's all right now. Thanks ever so.' + +'You are a dear,' cried Anthea, not in the least knowing what she +was saying. 'Oh, thank you thank you. But DO go NOW!' + +She caught the hand of the creature, and it was cold and hard in +hers, like a hand of stone. + +'Go forward,' said Nisroch. And they went. + + +'Oh, my good gracious,' said the Queen as they stood before her. +'How did you get here? I KNEW you were magic. I meant to let +you out the first thing in the morning, if I could slip away--but +thanks be to Dagon, you've managed it for yourselves. You must +get away. I'll wake my chief lady and she shall call +Ritti-Marduk, and he'll let you out the back way, and--' + +'Don't rouse anybody for goodness' sake,' said Anthea, 'except +Jane, and I'll rouse her.' + +She shook Jane with energy, and Jane slowly awoke. + +'Ritti-Marduk brought them in hours ago, really,' said the Queen, +'but I wanted to have the Psammead all to myself for a bit. +You'll excuse the little natural deception?--it's part of the +Babylonish character, don't you know? But I don't want anything +to happen to you. Do let me rouse someone.' + +'No, no, no,' said Anthea with desperate earnestness. She +thought she knew enough of what the Babylonians were like when +they were roused. 'We can go by our own magic. And you will +tell the King it wasn't the gaoler's fault. It was Nisroch.' + +'Nisroch!' echoed the Queen. 'You are indeed magicians.' + +Jane sat up, blinking stupidly. + +'Hold It up, and say the word,' cried Cyril, catching up the +Psammead, which mechanically bit him, but only very slightly. + +'Which is the East?' asked Jane. + +'Behind me,' said the Queen. 'Why?' + +'Ur Hekau Setcheh,' said Jane sleepily, and held up the charm. + +And there they all were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy +Street. + +'Jane,' cried Cyril with great presence of mind, 'go and get the +plate of sand down for the Psammead.' + +Jane went. + +'Look here!' he said quickly, as the sound of her boots grew less +loud on the stairs, 'don't let's tell her about the dungeon and +all that. It'll only frighten her so that she'll never want to +go anywhere else.' + +'Righto!' said Cyril; but Anthea felt that she could not have +said a word to save her life. + +'Why did you want to come back in such a hurry?' asked Jane, +returning with the plate of sand. 'It was awfully jolly in +Babylon, I think! I liked it no end.' + +'Oh, yes,' said Cyril carelessly. 'It was jolly enough, of +course, but I thought we'd been there long enough. Mother always +says you oughtn't to wear out your welcome!' + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +THE QUEEN IN LONDON + +'Now tell us what happened to you,' said Cyril to Jane, when he +and the others had told her all about the Queen's talk and the +banquet, and the variety entertainment, carefully stopping short +before the beginning of the dungeon part of the story. + +'It wasn't much good going,' said Jane, 'if you didn't even try +to get the Amulet.' + +'We found out it was no go,' said Cyril; 'it's not to be got in +Babylon. It was lost before that. We'll go to some other jolly +friendly place, where everyone is kind and pleasant, and look for +it there. Now tell us about your part.' + +'Oh,' said Jane, 'the Queen's man with the smooth face--what was +his name?' + +'Ritti-Marduk,' said Cyril. + +'Yes,' said Jane, 'Ritti-Marduk, he came for me just after the +Psammead had bitten the guard-of-the-gate's wife's little boy, +and he took me to the Palace. And we had supper with the new +little Queen from Egypt. She is a dear--not much older than you. +She told me heaps about Egypt. And we played ball after supper. +And then the Babylon Queen sent for me. I like her too. And she +talked to the Psammead and I went to sleep. And then you woke me +up. That's all.' + +The Psammead, roused from its sound sleep, told the same story. + +'But,' it added, 'what possessed you to tell that Queen that I +could give wishes? I sometimes think you were born without even +the most rudimentary imitation of brains.' + +The children did not know the meaning of rudimentary, but it +sounded a rude, insulting word. + +'I don't see that we did any harm,' said Cyril sulkily. + +'Oh, no,' said the Psammead with withering irony, 'not at all! +Of course not! Quite the contrary! Exactly so! Only she +happened to wish that she might soon find herself in your +country. And soon may mean any moment.' + +'Then it's your fault,' said Robert, 'because you might just as +well have made "soon" mean some moment next year or next +century.' + +'That's where you, as so often happens, make the mistake,' +rejoined the Sand-fairy. '_I_ couldn't mean anything but what +SHE meant by "soon". It wasn't my wish. And what SHE meant was +the next time the King happens to go out lion hunting. So she'll +have a whole day, and perhaps two, to do as she wishes with. SHE +doesn't know about time only being a mode of thought.' + +'Well,' said Cyril, with a sigh of resignation, 'we must do what +we can to give her a good time. She was jolly decent to us. I +say, suppose we were to go to St James's Park after dinner and +feed those ducks that we never did feed. After all that Babylon +and all those years ago, I feel as if I should like to see +something REAL, and NOW. You'll come, Psammead?' + +'Where's my priceless woven basket of sacred rushes?' asked the +Psammead morosely. 'I can't go out with nothing on. And I +won't, what's more.' + +And then everybody remembered with pain that the bass bag had, in +the hurry of departure from Babylon, not been remembered. + +'But it's not so extra precious,' said Robert hastily. 'You can +get them given to you for nothing if you buy fish in Farringdon +Market.' + +'Oh,' said the Psammead very crossly indeed, 'so you presume on +my sublime indifference to the things of this disgusting modern +world, to fob me off with a travelling equipage that costs you +nothing. Very well, I shall go to sand. Please don't wake me.' + +And it went then and there to sand, which, as you know, meant to +bed. The boys went to St James's Park to feed the ducks, but +they went alone. + +Anthea and Jane sat sewing all the afternoon. They cut off half +a yard from each of their best green Liberty sashes. A towel cut +in two formed a lining; and they sat and sewed and sewed and +sewed. What they were making was a bag for the Psammead. Each +worked at a half of the bag. jane's half had four-leaved +shamrocks embroidered on it. They were the only things she could +do (because she had been taught how at school, and, fortunately, +some of the silk she had been taught with was left over). And +even so, Anthea had to draw the pattern for her. Anthea's side +of the bag had letters on it--worked hastily but affectionately +in chain stitch. They were something like this: + +PSAMS TRAVEL CAR + +She would have put 'travelling carriage', but she made the +letters too big, so there was no room. The bag was made INTO a +bag with old Nurse's sewing machine, and the strings of it were +Anthea's and Jane's best red hair ribbons. At tea-time, when the +boys had come home with a most unfavourable report of the St +james's Park ducks, Anthea ventured to awaken the Psammead, and +to show it its new travelling bag. + +'Humph,' it said, sniffing a little contemptuously, yet at the +same time affectionately, 'it's not so dusty.' + +The Psammead seemed to pick up very easily the kind of things +that people said nowadays. For a creature that had in its time +associated with Megatheriums and Pterodactyls, its quickness was +really wonderful. + +'It's more worthy of me,' it said, 'than the kind of bag that's +given away with a pound of plaice. When do you propose to take +me out in it?' + +'I should like a rest from taking you or us anywhere,' said +Cyril. But Jane said-- + +'I want to go to Egypt. I did like that Egyptian Princess that +came to marry the King in Babylon. She told me about the larks +they have in Egypt. And the cats. Do let's go there. And I +told her what the bird things on the Amulet were like. And she +said it was Egyptian writing.' + +The others exchanged looks of silent rejoicing at the thought of +their cleverness in having concealed from Jane the terrors they +had suffered in the dungeon below the Euphrates. + +'Egypt's so nice too,' Jane went on, 'because of Doctor Brewer's +Scripture History. I would like to go there when Joseph was +dreaming those curious dreams, or when Moses was doing wonderful +things with snakes and sticks.' + +'I don't care about snakes,' said Anthea shuddering. + +'Well, we needn't be in at that part, but Babylon was lovely! We +had cream and sweet, sticky stuff. And I expect Egypt's the +same.' + +There was a good deal of discussion, but it all ended in +everybody's agreeing to Jane's idea. And next morning directly +after breakfast (which was kippers and very nice) the Psammead +was invited to get into his travelling carriage. + +The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, +like that of a cat when you want to nurse it, and its ideas are +not the same as yours, old Nurse came in. + +'Well, chickies,' she said, 'are you feeling very dull?' + +'Oh, no, Nurse dear,' said Anthea; 'we're having a lovely time. +We're just going off to see some old ancient relics.' + +'Ah,' said old Nurse, 'the Royal Academy, I suppose? Don't go +wasting your money too reckless, that's all.' + +She cleared away the kipper bones and the tea-things, and when +she had swept up the crumbs and removed the cloth, the Amulet was +held up and the order given--just as Duchesses (and other people) +give it to their coachmen. + +'To Egypt, please!' said Anthea, when Cyril had uttered the +wonderful Name of Power. + +'When Moses was there,' added Jane. + +And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street dining-room, the Amulet +grew big, and it was an arch, and through it they saw a blue, +blue sky and a running river. + +'No, stop!' said Cyril, and pulled down jane's hand with the +Amulet in it. + +'What silly cuckoos we all are,' he said. 'Of course we can't +go. We daren't leave home for a single minute now, for fear that +minute should be THE minute.' + +'What minute be WHAT minute?' asked Jane impatiently, trying to +get her hand away from Cyril. + +'The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,' said Cyril. And +then everyone saw it. + + +For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful +stream. + +The children could never go out all at once, because they never +knew when the King of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave +his Queen free to pay them that surprise visit to which she was, +without doubt, eagerly looking forward. + +So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in. + +The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but +for the new interest taken in them by the learned gentleman. + +He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of +purple and gold beads. + +'I saw one like that,' she said, 'in--' + +'In the British Museum, perhaps?' + +'I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,' said Anthea +cautiously. + +'A pretty fancy,' said the learned gentleman, 'and quite correct +too, because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from +Babylon.' The other three were all out that day. The boys had +been going to the Zoo, and Jane had said so plaintively, 'I'm +sure I am fonder of rhinoceroses than either of you are,' that +Anthea had told her to run along then. And she had run, catching +the boys before that part of the road where Fitzroy Street +suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square. + +'I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,' said Anthea. +'I do have such interesting dreams about it--at least, not dreams +exactly, but quite as wonderful.' + +'Do sit down and tell me,' said he. So she sat down and told. +And he asked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as +well as she could. + +'Wonderful--wonderful!' he said at last. 'One's heard of +thought-transference, but I never thought _I_ had any power of +that sort. Yet it must be that, and very bad for YOU, I should +think. Doesn't your head ache very much?' + +He suddenly put a cold, thin hand on her forehead. + +'No thank you, not at all,' said she. + +'I assure you it is not done intentionally,' he went on. 'Of +course I know a good deal about Babylon, and I unconsciously +communicate it to you; you've heard of thought-reading, but some +of the things you say, I don't understand; they never enter my +head, and yet they're so astoundingly probable.' + +'It's all right,' said Anthea reassuringly. '_I_ understand. +And don't worry. It's all quite simple really.' + +It was not quite so simple when Anthea, having heard the others +come in, went down, and before she had had time to ask how they +had liked the Zoo, heard a noise outside, compared to which the +wild beasts' noises were gentle as singing birds. + +'Good gracious!' cried Anthea, 'what's that?' + +The loud hum of many voices came through the open window. Words +could be distinguished. + +''Ere's a guy!' + +'This ain't November. That ain't no guy. It's a ballet lady, +that's what it is.' + +'Not it--it's a bloomin' looney, I tell you.' + +Then came a clear voice that they knew. + +'Retire, slaves!' it said. + +'What's she a saying of?' cried a dozen voices. 'Some blamed +foreign lingo,' one voice replied. + +The children rushed to the door. A crowd was on the road and +pavement. + +In the middle of the crowd, plainly to be seen from the top of +the steps, were the beautiful face and bright veil of the +Babylonian Queen. + +'Jimminy!' cried Robert, and ran down the steps, 'here she is!' + +'Here!' he cried, 'look out--let the lady pass. She's a friend +of ours, coming to see us.' + +'Nice friend for a respectable house,' snorted a fat woman with +marrows on a handcart. + +All the same the crowd made way a little. The Queen met Robert +on the pavement, and Cyril joined them, the Psammead bag still on +his arm. + +'Here,' he whispered; 'here's the Psammead; you can get wishes.' + +'_I_ wish you'd come in a different dress, if you HAD to come,' +said Robert; 'but it's no use my wishing anything.' + +'No,' said the Queen. 'I wish I was dressed--no, I don't--I wish +THEY were dressed properly, then they wouldn't be so silly.' + +The Psammead blew itself out till the bag was a very tight fit +for it; and suddenly every man, woman, and child in that crowd +felt that it had not enough clothes on. For, of course, the +Queen's idea of proper dress was the dress that had been proper +for the working-classes 3,000 years ago in Babylon--and there was +not much of it. + +'Lawky me!' said the marrow-selling woman, 'whatever could a-took +me to come out this figure?' and she wheeled her cart away very +quickly indeed. + +'Someone's made a pretty guy of you--talk of guys,' said a man +who sold bootlaces. + +'Well, don't you talk,' said the man next to him. 'Look at your +own silly legs; and where's your boots?' + +'I never come out like this, I'll take my sacred,' said the +bootlace-seller. 'I wasn't quite myself last night, I'll own, +but not to dress up like a circus.' + +The crowd was all talking at once, and getting rather angry. But +no one seemed to think of blaming the Queen. + +Anthea bounded down the steps and pulled her up; the others +followed, and the door was shut. 'Blowed if I can make it out!' +they heard. 'I'm off home, I am.' + +And the crowd, coming slowly to the same mind, dispersed, +followed by another crowd of persons who were not dressed in what +the Queen thought was the proper way. + +'We shall have the police here directly,' said Anthea in the +tones of despair. 'Oh, why did you come dressed like that?' + +The Queen leaned against the arm of the horse-hair sofa. + +'How else can a queen dress I should like to know?' she +questioned. + +'Our Queen wears things like other people,' said Cyril. + +'Well, I don't. And I must say,' she remarked in an injured +tone, 'that you don't seem very glad to see me now I HAVE come. +But perhaps it's the surprise that makes you behave like this. +Yet you ought to be used to surprises. The way you vanished! I +shall never forget it. The best magic I've ever seen. How did +you do it?' + +'Oh, never mind about that now,' said Robert. 'You see you've +gone and upset all those people, and I expect they'll fetch the +police. And we don't want to see you collared and put in +prison.' + +'You can't put queens in prison,' she said loftily. 'Oh, can't +you?' said Cyril. 'We cut off a king's head here once.' + +'In this miserable room? How frightfully interesting.' + +'No, no, not in this room; in history.' + +'Oh, in THAT,' said the Queen disparagingly. 'I thought you'd +done it with your own hands.' + +The girls shuddered. + +'What a hideous city yours is,' the Queen went on pleasantly, +'and what horrid, ignorant people. Do you know they actually +can't understand a single word I say.' + +'Can you understand them?' asked Jane. + +'Of course not; they speak some vulgar, Northern dialect. I can +understand YOU quite well.' + +I really am not going to explain AGAIN how it was that the +children could understand other languages than their own so +thoroughly, and talk them, too, so that it felt and sounded (to +them) just as though they were talking English. + +'Well,' said Cyril bluntly, 'now you've seen just how horrid it +is, don't you think you might as well go home again?' 'Why, I've +seen simply nothing yet,' said the Queen, arranging her starry +veil. 'I wished to be at your door, and I was. Now I must go +and see your King and Queen.' + +'Nobody's allowed to,' said Anthea in haste; 'but look here, +we'll take you and show you anything you'd like to see--anything +you CAN see,' she added kindly, because she remembered how nice +the Queen had been to them in Babylon, even if she had been a +little deceitful in the matter of Jane and Psammead. + +'There's the Museum,' said Cyril hopefully; 'there are lots of +things from your country there. If only we could disguise you a +little.' + +'I know,' said Anthea suddenly. 'Mother's old theatre cloak, and +there are a lot of her old hats in the big box.' + +The blue silk, lace-trimmed cloak did indeed hide some of the +Queen's startling splendours, but the hat fitted very badly. It +had pink roses in it; and there was something about the coat or +the hat or the Queen, that made her look somehow not very +respectable. + +'Oh, never mind,' said Anthea, when Cyril whispered this. 'The +thing is to get her out before Nurse has finished her forty +winks. I should think she's about got to the thirty-ninth wink +by now.' + +'Come on then,' said Robert. 'You know how dangerous it is. +Let's make haste into the Museum. If any of those people you +made guys of do fetch the police, they won't think of looking for +you there.' + +The blue silk coat and the pink-rosed hat attracted almost as +much attention as the royal costume had done; and the children +were uncommonly glad to get out of the noisy streets into the +grey quiet of the Museum. + +'Parcels and umbrellas to be left here,' said a man at the +counter. + +The party had no umbrellas, and the only parcel was the bag +containing the Psammead, which the Queen had insisted should be +brought. + +'I'M not going to be left,' said the Psammead softly, 'so don't +you think it.' + +'I'll wait outside with you,' said Anthea hastily, and went to +sit on the seat near the drinking fountain. + +'Don't sit so near that nasty fountain,' said the creature +crossly; 'I might get splashed.' + +Anthea obediently moved to another seat and waited. Indeed she +waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. The +Psammead dropped into an uneasy slumber. Anthea had long ceased +to watch the swing-door that always let out the wrong person, and +she was herself almost asleep, and still the others did not come +back. + +It was quite a start when Anthea suddenly realized that they HAD +come back, and that they were not alone. Behind them was quite a +crowd of men in uniform, and several gentlemen were there. +Everyone seemed very angry. + +'Now go,' said the nicest of the angry gentlemen. 'Take the +poor, demented thing home and tell your parents she ought to be +properly looked after.' + +'If you can't get her to go we must send for the police,' said +the nastiest gentleman. + +'But we don't wish to use harsh measures,' added the nice one, +who was really very nice indeed, and seemed to be over all the +others. + +'May I speak to my sister a moment first?' asked Robert. + +The nicest gentleman nodded, and the officials stood round the +Queen, the others forming a sort of guard while Robert crossed +over to Anthea. + +'Everything you can think of,' he replied to Anthea's glance of +inquiry. 'Kicked up the most frightful shine in there. Said +those necklaces and earrings and things in the glass cases were +all hers--would have them out of the cases. Tried to break the +glass--she did break one bit! Everybody in the place has been at +her. No good. I only got her out by telling her that was the +place where they cut queens' heads off.' + +'Oh, Bobs, what a whacker!' + +'You'd have told a whackinger one to get her out. Besides, it +wasn't. I meant MUMMY queens. How do you know they don't cut +off mummies' heads to see how the embalming is done? What I want +to say is, can't you get her to go with you quietly?' + +'I'll try,' said Anthea, and went up to the Queen. + +'Do come home,' she said; 'the learned gentleman in our house has +a much nicer necklace than anything they've got here. Come and +see it.' + +The Queen nodded. + +'You see,' said the nastiest gentleman, 'she does understand +English.' + +'I was talking Babylonian, I think,' said Anthea bashfully. + +'My good child,' said the nice gentleman, 'what you're talking is +not Babylonian, but nonsense. You just go home at once, and tell +your parents exactly what has happened.' + +Anthea took the Queen's hand and gently pulled her away. The +other children followed, and the black crowd of angry gentlemen +stood on the steps watching them. It was when the little party +of disgraced children, with the Queen who had disgraced them, had +reached the middle of the courtyard that her eyes fell on the bag +where the Psammead was. She stopped short. + +'I wish,' she said, very loud and clear, 'that all those +Babylonian things would come out to me here--slowly, so that +those dogs and slaves can see the working of the great Queen's +magic.' + +'Oh, you ARE a tiresome woman,' said the Psammead in its bag, but +it puffed itself out. + +Next moment there was a crash. The glass swing doors and all +their framework were smashed suddenly and completely. The crowd +of angry gentlemen sprang aside when they saw what had done this. + +But the nastiest of them was not quick enough, and he was roughly +pushed out of the way by an enormous stone bull that was floating +steadily through the door. It came and stood beside the Queen in +the middle of the courtyard. + +It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved +stone, bricks, helmets, tools, weapons, fetters, wine-jars, +bowls, bottles, vases, jugs, saucers, seals, and the round long +things, something like rolling pins with marks on them like the +print of little bird-feet, necklaces, collars, rings, armlets, +earrings--heaps and heaps and heaps of things, far more than +anyone had time to count, or even to see distinctly. + +All the angry gentlemen had abruptly sat down on the Museum steps +except the nice one. He stood with his hands in his pockets just +as though he was quite used to seeing great stone bulls and all +sorts of small Babylonish objects float out into the Museum yard. + +But he sent a man to close the big iron gates. + +A journalist, who was just leaving the museum, spoke to Robert as +he passed. + +'Theosophy, I suppose?' he said. 'Is she Mrs Besant?' + +'YES,' said Robert recklessly. + +The journalist passed through the gates just before they were +shut. + +He rushed off to Fleet Street, and his paper got out a new +edition within half an hour. + + MRS BESANT AND THEOSOPHY + + IMPERTINENT MIRACLE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM. + +People saw it in fat, black letters on the boards carried by the +sellers of newspapers. Some few people who had nothing better to +do went down to the Museum on the tops of omnibuses. But by the +time they got there there was nothing to be seen. For the +Babylonian Queen had suddenly seen the closed gates, had felt the +threat of them, and had said-- + +'I wish we were in your house.' + +And, of course, instantly they were. + +The Psammead was furious. + +'Look here,' it said, 'they'll come after you, and they'll find +ME. There'll be a National Cage built for me at Westminster, and +I shall have to work at politics. Why wouldn't you leave the +things in their places?' + +'What a temper you have, haven't you?' said the Queen serenely. +'I wish all the things were back in their places. Will THAT do +for you?' + +The Psammead swelled and shrank and spoke very angrily. + +'I can't refuse to give your wishes,' it said, 'but I can Bite. +And I will if this goes on. Now then.' + +'Ah, don't,' whispered Anthea close to its bristling ear; 'it's +dreadful for us too. Don't YOU desert us. Perhaps she'll wish +herself at home again soon.' + +'Not she,' said the Psammead a little less crossly. + +'Take me to see your City,' said the Queen. + +The children looked at each other. + +'If we had some money we could take her about in a cab. People +wouldn't notice her so much then. But we haven't.' + +'Sell this,' said the Queen, taking a ring from her finger. + +'They'd only think we'd stolen it,' said Cyril bitterly, 'and put +us in prison.' + +'All roads lead to prison with you, it seems,' said the Queen. + +'The learned gentleman!' said Anthea, and ran up to him with the +ring in her hand. + +'Look here,' she said, 'will you buy this for a pound?' + +'Oh!' he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring +into his hand. 'It's my very own,' said Anthea; 'it was given to +me to sell.' + +'I'll lend you a pound,' said the learned gentleman, 'with +pleasure; and I'll take care of the ring for you. Who did you +say gave it to you?' + +'We call her,' said Anthea carefully, 'the Queen of Babylon.' + +'Is it a game?' he asked hopefully. + +'It'll be a pretty game if I don't get the money to pay for cabs +for her,' said Anthea. + +'I sometimes think,' he said slowly, 'that I am becoming insane, +or that--' + +'Or that I am; but I'm not, and you're not, and she's not.' + +'Does she SAY that she's the Queen of Babylon?' he uneasily +asked. + +'Yes,' said Anthea recklessly. + +'This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,' +he said. 'I suppose I have unconsciously influenced HER, too. I +never thought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. +Horrible! There are more things in heaven and earth--' + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'heaps more. And the pound is the thing _I_ +want more than anything on earth.' + +He ran his fingers through his thin hair. + +'This thought-transference!' he said. 'It's undoubtedly a +Babylonian ring--or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have +hypnotized myself. I will see a doctor the moment I have +corrected the last proofs of my book.' + +'Yes, do!' said Anthea, 'and thank you so very much.' + +She took the sovereign and ran down to the others. + +And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of +Babylon beheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she +thought uninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of +Parliament little better. But she liked the Tower, and the +River, and the ships filled her with wonder and delight. + +'But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and +neglected they seem,' she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile +End Road. + +'They aren't slaves; they're working-people,' said Jane. + +'Of course they're working. That's what slaves are. Don't you +tell me. Do you suppose I don't know a slave's face when I see +it? + +Why don't their masters see that they're better fed and better +clothed? Tell me in three words.' + +No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little +difficult to explain in three words even if you understand +it--which the children didn't. + +'You'll have a revolt of your slaves if you're not careful,' said +the Queen. + +'Oh, no,' said Cyril; 'you see they have votes--that makes them +safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me +so.' + +'What is this vote?' asked the Queen. 'Is it a charm? What do +they do with it?' + +'I don't know,' said the harassed Cyril; 'it's just a vote, +that's all! They don't do anything particular with it.' + +'I see,' said the Queen; 'a sort of plaything. Well, I wish that +all these slaves may have in their hands this moment their fill +of their favourite meat and drink.' + +Instantly all the people in the Mile End Road, and in all the +other streets where poor people live, found their hands full of +things to eat and drink. From the cab window could be seen +persons carrying every kind of food, and bottles and cans as +well. Roast meat, fowls, red lobsters, great yellowy crabs, +fried fish, boiled pork, beef-steak puddings, baked onions, +mutton pies; most of the young people had oranges and sweets and +cake. It made an enormous change in the look of the Mile End +Road--brightened it up, so to speak, and brightened up, more than +you can possibly imagine, the faces of the people. + +'Makes a difference, doesn't it?' said the Queen. + +'That's the best wish you've had yet,' said Jane with cordial +approval. + +just by the Bank the cabman stopped. + +'I ain't agoin' to drive you no further,' he said. 'Out you +gets.' + +They got out rather unwillingly. + +'I wants my tea,' he said; and they saw that on the box of the +cab was a mound of cabbage, with pork chops and apple sauce, a +duck, and a spotted currant pudding. Also a large can. + +'You pay me my fare,' he said threateningly, and looked down at +the mound, muttering again about his tea. + +'We'll take another cab,' said Cyril with dignity. 'Give me +change for a sovereign, if you please.' + +But the cabman, as it turned out, was not at all a nice +character. He took the sovereign, whipped up his horse, and +disappeared in the stream of cabs and omnibuses and wagons, +without giving them any change at all. + +Already a little crowd was collecting round the party. + +'Come on,' said Robert, leading the wrong way. + +The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street +where many gentlemen in black coats and without hats were +standing about on the pavement talking very loudly. + +'How ugly their clothes are,' said the Queen of Babylon. 'They'd +be rather fine men, some of them, if they were dressed decently, +especially the ones with the beautiful long, curved noses. I +wish they were dressed like the Babylonians of my court.' + +And of course, it was so. + +The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out +every man in Throgmorton Street appeared abruptly in Babylonian +full dress. + +All were carefully powdered, their hair and beards were scented +and curled, their garments richly embroidered. They wore rings +and armlets, flat gold collars and swords, and impossible-looking +head-dresses. + +A stupefied silence fell on them. + +'I say,' a youth who had always been fair-haired broke that +silence, 'it's only fancy of course--something wrong with my +eyes--but you chaps do look so rum.' + +'Rum,' said his friend. 'Look at YOU. You in a sash! My hat! +And your hair's gone black and you've got a beard. It's my +belief we've been poisoned. You do look a jackape.' + +'Old Levinstein don't look so bad. But how was it DONE--that's +what I want to know. How was it done? Is it conjuring, or +what?' + +'I think it is chust a ver' bad tream,' said old Levinstein to +his clerk; 'all along Bishopsgate I haf seen the gommon people +have their hants full of food--GOOT food. Oh yes, without doubt +a very bad tream!' + +'Then I'm dreaming too, Sir,' said the clerk, looking down at his +legs with an expression of loathing. 'I see my feet in beastly +sandals as plain as plain.' + +'All that goot food wasted,' said old Mr Levinstein. A bad +tream--a bad tream.' + +The Members of the Stock Exchange are said to be at all times a +noisy lot. But the noise they made now to express their disgust +at the costumes of ancient Babylon was far louder than their +ordinary row. One had to shout before one could hear oneself +speak. + +'I only wish,' said the clerk who thought it was conjuring--he +was quite close to the children and they trembled, because they +knew that whatever he wished would come true. 'I only wish we +knew who'd done it.' + +And, of course, instantly they did know, and they pressed round +the Queen. + +'Scandalous! Shameful! Ought to be put down by law. Give her +in charge. Fetch the police,' two or three voices shouted at +once. + +The Queen recoiled. + +'What is it?' she asked. 'They sound like caged lions--lions by +the thousand. What is it that they say?' + +'They say "Police!",' said Cyril briefly. 'I knew they would +sooner or later. And I don't blame them, mind you.' + +'I wish my guards were here!' cried the Queen. The exhausted +Psammead was panting and trembling, but the Queen's guards in red +and green garments, and brass and iron gear, choked Throgmorton +Street, and bared weapons flashed round the Queen. + +'I'm mad,' said a Mr Rosenbaum; 'dat's what it is--mad!' + +'It's a judgement on you, Rosy,' said his partner. 'I always +said you were too hard in that matter of Flowerdew. It's a +judgement, and I'm in it too.' + +The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from +the gleaming blades, the mailed figures, the hard, cruel Eastern +faces. + +But Throgmorton Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for +them to get away as quickly as they wished. + +'Kill them,' cried the Queen. 'Kill the dogs!' + +The guards obeyed. + +'It IS all a dream,' cried Mr Levinstein, cowering in a doorway +behind his clerk. + +'It isn't,' said the clerk. 'It isn't. Oh, my good gracious! +those foreign brutes are killing everybody. Henry Hirsh is down +now, and Prentice is cut in two--oh, Lord! and Huth, and there +goes Lionel Cohen with his head off, and Guy Nickalls has lost +his head now. A dream? I wish to goodness it was all a dream.' + +And, of course, instantly it was! The entire Stock Exchange +rubbed its eyes and went back to close, to over, and either side +of seven-eights, and Trunks, and Kaffirs, and Steel Common, and +Contangoes, and Backwardations, Double Options, and all the +interesting subjects concerning which they talk in the Street +without ceasing. + +No one said a word about it to anyone else. I think I have +explained before that business men do not like it to be known +that they have been dreaming in business hours. Especially mad +dreams including such dreadful things as hungry people getting +dinners, and the destruction of the Stock Exchange. + + +The children were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street, pale +and trembling. The Psammead crawled out of the embroidered bag, +and lay flat on the table, its leg stretched out, looking more +like a dead hare than anything else. + +'Thank Goodness that's over,' said Anthea, drawing a deep breath. + +'She won't come back, will she?' asked Jane tremulously. + +'No,' said Cyril. 'She's thousands of years ago. But we spent a +whole precious pound on her. It'll take all our pocket-money for +ages to pay that back.' + +'Not if it was ALL a dream,' said Robert. + +'The wish said ALL a dream, you know, Panther; you cut up and ask +if he lent you anything.' + +'I beg your pardon,' said Anthea politely, following the sound of +her knock into the presence of the learned gentleman, 'I'm so +sorry to trouble you, but DID you lend me a pound today?' + +'No,' said he, looking kindly at her through his spectacles. +'But it's extraordinary that you should ask me, for I dozed for a +few moments this afternoon, a thing I very rarely do, and I +dreamed quite distinctly that you brought me a ring that you said +belonged to the Queen of Babylon, and that I lent you a sovereign +and that you left one of the Queen's rings here. The ring was a +magnificent specimen.' He sighed. 'I wish it hadn't been a +dream,' he said smiling. He was really learning to smile quite +nicely. + +Anthea could not be too thankful that the Psammead was not there +to grant his wish. + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +ATLANTIS + +You will understand that the adventure of the Babylonian queen in +London was the only one that had occupied any time at all. But +the children's time was very fully taken up by talking over all +the wonderful things seen and done in the Past, where, by the +power of the Amulet, they seemed to spend hours and hours, only +to find when they got back to London that the whole thing had +been briefer than a lightning flash. + +They talked of the Past at their meals, in their walks, in the +dining-room, in the first-floor drawing-room, but most of all on +the stairs. It was an old house; it had once been a fashionable +one, and was a fine one still. The banister rails of the stairs +were excellent for sliding down, and in the corners of the +landings were big alcoves that had once held graceful statues, +and now quite often held the graceful forms of Cyril, Robert, +Anthea, and Jane. + +One day Cyril and Robert in tight white underclothing had spent a +pleasant hour in reproducing the attitudes of statues seen either +in the British Museum, or in Father's big photograph book. But +the show ended abruptly because Robert wanted to be the Venus of +Milo, and for this purpose pulled at the sheet which served for +drapery at the very moment when Cyril, looking really quite like +the Discobolos--with a gold and white saucer for the disc--was +standing on one foot, and under that one foot was the sheet. + +Of course the Discobolos and his disc and the would-be Venus came +down together, and everyone was a good deal hurt, especially the +saucer, which would never be the same again, however neatly one +might join its uneven bits with Seccotine or the white of an egg. + +'I hope you're satisfied,' said Cyril, holding his head where a +large lump was rising. + +'Quite, thanks,' said Robert bitterly. His thumb had caught in +the banisters and bent itself back almost to breaking point. + +'I AM so sorry, poor, dear Squirrel,' said Anthea; 'and you were +looking so lovely. I'll get a wet rag. Bobs, go and hold your +hand under the hot-water tap. It's what ballet girls do with +their legs when they hurt them. I saw it in a book.' + +'What book?' said Robert disagreeably. But he went. + +When he came back Cyril's head had been bandaged by his sisters, +and he had been brought to the state of mind where he was able +reluctantly to admit that he supposed Robert hadn't done it on +purpose. + +Robert replying with equal suavity, Anthea hastened to lead the +talk away from the accident. + +'I suppose you don't feel like going anywhere through the +Amulet,' she said. + +'Egypt!' said Jane promptly. 'I want to see the pussy cats.' + +'Not me--too hot,' said Cyril. 'It's about as much as I can +stand here--let alone Egypt.' It was indeed, hot, even on the +second landing, which was the coolest place in the house. 'Let's +go to the North Pole.' + +'I don't suppose the Amulet was ever there--and we might get our +fingers frost-bitten so that we could never hold it up to get +home again. No thanks,' said Robert. + +'I say,' said Jane, 'let's get the Psammead and ask its advice. +It will like us asking, even if we don't take it.' + +The Psammead was brought up in its green silk embroidered bag, +but before it could be asked anything the door of the learned +gentleman's room opened and the voice of the visitor who had been +lunching with him was heard on the stairs. He seemed to be +speaking with the door handle in his hand. + +'You see a doctor, old boy,' he said; 'all that about +thought-transference is just simply twaddle. You've been +over-working. Take a holiday. Go to Dieppe.' + +'I'd rather go to Babylon,' said the learned gentleman. + +'I wish you'd go to Atlantis some time, while we're about it, so +as to give me some tips for my Nineteenth Century article when +you come home.' + +'I wish I could,' said the voice of the learned gentleman. +'Goodbye. Take care of yourself.' + +The door was banged, and the visitor came smiling down the +stairs--a stout, prosperous, big man. The children had to get up +to let him pass. + +'Hullo, Kiddies,' he said, glancing at the bandages on the head +of Cyril and the hand of Robert, 'been in the wars?' + +'It's all right,' said Cyril. 'I say, what was that Atlantic +place you wanted him to go to? We couldn't help hearing you +talk.' + +'You talk so VERY loud, you see,' said Jane soothingly. + +'Atlantis,' said the visitor, 'the lost Atlantis, garden of the +Hesperides. Great continent--disappeared in the sea. You can +read about it in Plato.' + +'Thank you,' said Cyril doubtfully. + +'Were there any Amulets there?' asked Anthea, made anxious by a +sudden thought. + +'Hundreds, I should think. So HE'S been talking to you?' + +'Yes, often. He's very kind to us. We like him awfully.' + +'Well, what he wants is a holiday; you persuade him to take one. +What he wants is a change of scene. You see, his head is crusted +so thickly inside with knowledge about Egypt and Assyria and +things that you can't hammer anything into it unless you keep +hard at it all day long for days and days. And I haven't time. +But you live in the house. You can hammer almost incessantly. +Just try your hands, will you? Right. So long!' + +He went down the stairs three at a time, and Jane remarked that +he was a nice man, and she thought he had little girls of his +own. + +'I should like to have them to play with,' she added pensively. + +The three elder ones exchanged glances. Cyril nodded. + +'All right. LET'S go to Atlantis,' he said. + +'Let's go to Atlantis and take the learned gentleman with us,' +said Anthea; 'he'll think it's a dream, afterwards, but it'll +certainly be a change of scene.' + +'Why not take him to nice Egypt?' asked Jane. + +'Too hot,' said Cyril shortly. + +'Or Babylon, where he wants to go?' + +'I've had enough of Babylon,' said Robert, 'at least for the +present. And so have the others. I don't know why,' he added, +forestalling the question on Jane's lips, 'but somehow we have. +Squirrel, let's take off these beastly bandages and get into +flannels. We can't go in our unders.' + +'He WISHED to go to Atlantis, so he's got to go some time; and he +might as well go with us,' said Anthea. + +This was how it was that the learned gentleman, permitting +himself a few moments of relaxation in his chair, after the +fatigue of listening to opinions (about Atlantis and many other +things) with which he did not at all agree, opened his eyes to +find his four young friends standing in front of him in a row. + +'Will you come,' said Anthea, 'to Atlantis with us?' + +'To know that you are dreaming shows that the dream is nearly at +an end,' he told himself; 'or perhaps it's only a game, like "How +many miles to Babylon?".' So he said aloud: 'Thank you very +much, but I have only a quarter of an hour to spare.' + +'It doesn't take any time,' said Cyril; 'time is only a mode of +thought, you know, and you've got to go some time, so why not +with us?' + +'Very well,' said the learned gentleman, now quite certain that +he was dreaming. + +Anthea held out her soft, pink hand. He took it. She pulled him +gently to his feet. Jane held up the Amulet. + +'To just outside Atlantis,' said Cyril, and Jane said the Name of +Power. + +'You owl!' said Robert, 'it's an island. Outside an island's all +water.' + +'I won't go. I WON'T,' said the Psammead, kicking and struggling +in its bag. + +But already the Amulet had grown to a great arch. Cyril pushed +the learned gentleman, as undoubtedly the first-born, through the +arch--not into water, but on to a wooden floor, out of doors. +The others followed. The Amulet grew smaller again, and there +they all were, standing on the deck of a ship whose sailors were +busy making her fast with chains to rings on a white quay-side. +The rings and the chains were of a metal that shone red-yellow +like gold. + +Everyone on the ship seemed too busy at first to notice the group +of newcomers from Fitzroy Street. Those who seemed to be +officers were shouting orders to the men. + +They stood and looked across the wide quay to the town that rose +beyond it. What they saw was the most beautiful sight any of +them had ever seen--or ever dreamed of. + +The blue sea sparkled in soft sunlight; little white-capped waves +broke softly against the marble breakwaters that guarded the +shipping of a great city from the wilderness of winter winds and +seas. The quay was of marble, white and sparkling with a veining +bright as gold. The city was of marble, red and white. The +greater buildings that seemed to be temples and palaces were +roofed with what looked like gold and silver, but most of the +roofs were of copper that glowed golden-red on the houses on the +hills among which the city stood, and shaded into marvellous +tints of green and blue and purple where they had been touched by +the salt sea spray and the fumes of the dyeing and smelting works +of the lower town. + +Broad and magnificent flights of marble stairs led up from the +quay to a sort of terrace that seemed to run along for miles, and +beyond rose the town built on a hill. + +The learned gentleman drew a long breath. 'Wonderful!' he said, +'wonderful!' + +'I say, Mr--what's your name,' said Robert. 'He means,' said +Anthea, with gentle politeness, 'that we never can remember your +name. I know it's Mr De Something.' + +'When I was your age I was called Jimmy,' he said timidly. +'Would you mind? I should feel more at home in a dream like this +if I-- Anything that made me seem more like one of you.' + +'Thank you--Jimmy,' said Anthea with an effort. It seemed such a +cheek to be saying Jimmy to a grown-up man. 'Jimmy, DEAR,' she +added, with no effort at all. Jimmy smiled and looked pleased. + +But now the ship was made fast, and the Captain had time to +notice other things. He came towards them, and he was dressed in +the best of all possible dresses for the seafaring life. + +'What are you doing here?' he asked rather fiercely. 'Do you +come to bless or to curse?' + +'To bless, of course,' said Cyril. 'I'm sorry if it annoys you, +but we're here by magic. We come from the land of the +sun-rising,' he went on explanatorily. + +'I see,' said the Captain; no one had expected that he would. 'I +didn't notice at first, but of course I hope you're a good omen. +It's needed. And this,' he pointed to the learned gentleman, +'your slave, I presume?' + +'Not at all,' said Anthea; 'he's a very great man. A sage, don't +they call it? And we want to see all your beautiful city, and +your temples and things, and then we shall go back, and he will +tell his friend, and his friend will write a book about it.' + +'What,' asked the Captain, fingering a rope, 'is a book?' + +'A record--something written, or,' she added hastily, remembering +the Babylonian writing, 'or engraved.' + +Some sudden impulse of confidence made Jane pluck the Amulet from +the neck of her frock. + +'Like this,' she said. + +The Captain looked at it curiously, but, the other three were +relieved to notice, without any of that overwhelming interest +which the mere name of it had roused in Egypt and Babylon. + +'The stone is of our country,' he said; 'and that which is +engraved on it, it is like our writing, but I cannot read it. +What is the name of your sage?' + +'Ji-jimmy,' said Anthea hesitatingly. + +The Captain repeated, 'Ji-jimmy. Will you land?' he added. 'And +shall I lead you to the Kings?' + +'Look here,' said Robert, 'does your King hate strangers?' + +'Our Kings are ten,' said the Captain, 'and the Royal line, +unbroken from Poseidon, the father of us all, has the noble +tradition to do honour to strangers if they come in peace.' + +'Then lead on, please,' said Robert, 'though I SHOULD like to see +all over your beautiful ship, and sail about in her.' + +'That shall be later,' said the Captain; 'just now we're afraid +of a storm--do you notice that odd rumbling?' + +'That's nothing, master,' said an old sailor who stood near; +'it's the pilchards coming in, that's all.' + +'Too loud,' said the Captain. + +There was a rather anxious pause; then the Captain stepped on to +the quay, and the others followed him. + +'Do talk to him--Jimmy,' said Anthea as they went; 'you can find +out all sorts of things for your friend's book.' + +'Please excuse me,' he said earnestly. 'If I talk I shall wake +up; and besides, I can't understand what he says.' + +No one else could think of anything to say, so that it was in +complete silence that they followed the Captain up the marble +steps and through the streets of the town. There were streets +and shops and houses and markets. + +'It's just like Babylon,' whispered Jane, 'only everything's +perfectly different.' + +'It's a great comfort the ten Kings have been properly brought +up--to be kind to strangers,' Anthea whispered to Cyril. + +'Yes,' he said, 'no deepest dungeons here.' + +There were no horses or chariots in the street, but there were +handcarts and low trolleys running on thick log-wheels, and +porters carrying packets on their heads, and a good many of the +people were riding on what looked like elephants, only the great +beasts were hairy, and they had not that mild expression we are +accustomed to meet on the faces of the elephants at the Zoo. + +'Mammoths!' murmured the learned gentleman, and stumbled over a +loose stone. + +The people in the streets kept crowding round them as they went +along, but the Captain always dispersed the crowd before it grew +uncomfortably thick by saying-- + +'Children of the Sun God and their High Priest--come to bless the +City.' + +And then the people would draw back with a low murmur that +sounded like a suppressed cheer. + +Many of the buildings were covered with gold, but the gold on the +bigger buildings was of a different colour, and they had sorts of +steeples of burnished silver rising above them. + +'Are all these houses real gold?' asked Jane. + +'The temples are covered with gold, of course,' answered the +Captain, 'but the houses are only oricalchum. It's not quite so +expensive.' + +The learned gentleman, now very pale, stumbled along in a dazed +way, repeating: + +'Oricalchum--oricalchum.' + +'Don't be frightened,' said Anthea; 'we can get home in a minute, +just by holding up the charm. Would you rather go back now? We +could easily come some other day without you.' + +'Oh, no, no,' he pleaded fervently; 'let the dream go on. +Please, please do.' + +'The High Ji-jimmy is perhaps weary with his magic journey,' said +the Captain, noticing the blundering walk of the learned +gentleman; 'and we are yet very far from the Great Temple, where +today the Kings make sacrifice.' + +He stopped at the gate of a great enclosure. It seemed to be a +sort of park, for trees showed high above its brazen wall. + +The party waited, and almost at once the Captain came back with +one of the hairy elephants and begged them to mount. + +This they did. + +It was a glorious ride. The elephant at the Zoo--to ride on him +is also glorious, but he goes such a very little way, and then he +goes back again, which is always dull. But this great hairy +beast went on and on and on along streets and through squares and +gardens. It was a glorious city; almost everything was built of +marble, red, or white, or black. Every now and then the party +crossed a bridge. + +It was not till they had climbed to the hill which is the centre +of the town that they saw that the whole city was divided into +twenty circles, alternately land and water, and over each of the +water circles were the bridges by which they had come. + +And now they were in a great square. A vast building filled up +one side of it; it was overlaid with gold, and had a dome of +silver. The rest of the buildings round the square were of +oricalchum. And it looked more splendid than you can possibly +imagine, standing up bold and shining in the sunlight. + +'You would like a bath,' said the Captain, as the hairy elephant +went clumsily down on his knees. 'It's customary, you know, +before entering the Presence. We have baths for men, women, +horses, and cattle. The High Class Baths are here. Our Father +Poseidon gave us a spring of hot water and one of cold.' + +The children had never before bathed in baths of gold. + +'It feels very splendid,' said Cyril, splashing. + +'At least, of course, it's not gold; it's or--what's its name,' +said Robert. 'Hand over that towel.' + +The bathing hall had several great pools sunk below the level of +the floor; one went down to them by steps. + +'Jimmy,' said Anthea timidly, when, very clean and +boiled-looking, they all met in the flowery courtyard of the +Public, 'don't you think all this seems much more like NOW than +Babylon or Egypt--? Oh, I forgot, you've never been there.' + +'I know a little of those nations, however,' said he, 'and I +quite agree with you. A most discerning remark--my dear,' he +added awkwardly; 'this city certainly seems to indicate a far +higher level of civilization than the Egyptian or Babylonish, +and--' + +'Follow me,' said the Captain. 'Now, boys, get out of the way.' +He pushed through a little crowd of boys who were playing with +dried chestnuts fastened to a string. + +'Ginger!' remarked Robert, 'they're playing conkers, just like +the kids in Kentish Town Road!' + +They could see now that three walls surrounded the island on +which they were. The outermost wall was of brass, the Captain +told them; the next, which looked like silver, was covered with +tin; and the innermost one was of oricalchum. + +And right in the middle was a wall of gold, with golden towers +and gates. + +'Behold the Temples of Poseidon,' said the Captain. 'It is not +lawful for me to enter. I will await your return here.' + +He told them what they ought to say, and the five people from +Fitzroy Street took hands and went forward. The golden gates +slowly opened. + +'We are the children of the Sun,' said Cyril, as he had been +told, 'and our High Priest, at least that's what the Captain +calls him. We have a different name for him at home.' 'What is +his name?' asked a white-robed man who stood in the doorway with +his arms extended. + +'Ji-jimmy,' replied Cyril, and he hesitated as Anthea had done. +It really did seem to be taking a great liberty with so learned a +gentleman. 'And we have come to speak with your Kings in the +Temple of Poseidon--does that word sound right?' he whispered +anxiously. + +'Quite,' said the learned gentleman. 'It's very odd I can +understand what you say to them, but not what they say to you.' + +'The Queen of Babylon found that too,' said Cyril; 'it's part of +the magic.' + +'Oh, what a dream!' said the learned gentleman. + +The white-robed priest had been joined by others, and all were +bowing low. + +'Enter,' he said, 'enter, Children of the Sun, with your High +Ji-jimmy.' + +In an inner courtyard stood the Temple--all of silver, with gold +pinnacles and doors, and twenty enormous statues in bright gold +of men and women. Also an immense pillar of the other precious +yellow metal. + +They went through the doors, and the priest led them up a stair +into a gallery from which they could look down on to the glorious +place. + +'The ten Kings are even now choosing the bull. It is not lawful +for me to behold,' said the priest, and fell face downward on the +floor outside the gallery. The children looked down. + +The roof was of ivory adorned with the three precious metals, and +the walls were lined with the favourite oricalchum. + +At the far end of the Temple was a statue group, the like of +which no one living has ever seen. + +It was of gold, and the head of the chief figure reached to the +roof. That figure was Poseidon, the Father of the City. He +stood in a great chariot drawn by six enormous horses, and round +about it were a hundred mermaids riding on dolphins. + +Ten men, splendidly dressed and armed only with sticks and ropes, +were trying to capture one of some fifteen bulls who ran this way +and that about the floor of the Temple. The children held their +breath, for the bulls looked dangerous, and the great horned +heads were swinging more and more wildly. + +Anthea did not like looking at the bulls. She looked about the +gallery, and noticed that another staircase led up from it to a +still higher storey; also that a door led out into the open air, +where there seemed to be a balcony. + +So that when a shout went up and Robert whispered, 'Got him,' and +she looked down and saw the herd of bulls being driven out of the +Temple by whips, and the ten Kings following, one of them +spurring with his stick a black bull that writhed and fought in +the grip of a lasso, she answered the boy's agitated, 'Now we +shan't see anything more,' with-- + +'Yes we can, there's an outside balcony.' + +So they crowded out. + +But very soon the girls crept back. + +'I don't like sacrifices,' Jane said. So she and Anthea went and +talked to the priest, who was no longer lying on his face, but +sitting on the top step mopping his forehead with his robe, for +it was a hot day. + +'It's a special sacrifice,' he said; 'usually it's only done on +the justice days every five years and six years alternately. And +then they drink the cup of wine with some of the bull's blood in +it, and swear to judge truly. And they wear the sacred blue +robe, and put out all the Temple fires. But this today is +because the City's so upset by the odd noises from the sea, and +the god inside the big mountain speaking with his thunder-voice. +But all that's happened so often before. If anything could make +ME uneasy it wouldn't be THAT.' + +'What would it be?' asked Jane kindly. + +'It would be the Lemmings.' + +'Who are they--enemies?' + +'They're a sort of rat; and every year they come swimming over +from the country that no man knows, and stay here awhile, and +then swim away. This year they haven't come. You know rats +won't stay on a ship that's going to be wrecked. If anything +horrible were going to happen to us, it's my belief those +Lemmings would know; and that may be why they've fought shy of +us.' + +'What do you call this country?' asked the Psammead, suddenly +putting its head out of its bag. + +'Atlantis,' said the priest. + +'Then I advise you to get on to the highest ground you can find. +I remember hearing something about a flood here. Look here, +you'--it turned to Anthea; 'let's get home. The prospect's too +wet for my whiskers.' The girls obediently went to find their +brothers, who were leaning on the balcony railings. + +'Where's the learned gentleman?' asked Anthea. + +'There he is--below,' said the priest, who had come with them. +'Your High Ji-jimmy is with the Kings.' + +The ten Kings were no longer alone. The learned gentleman--no +one had noticed how he got there--stood with them on the steps of +an altar, on which lay the dead body of the black bull. All the +rest of the courtyard was thick with people, seemingly of all +classes, and all were shouting, 'The sea--the sea!' + +'Be calm,' said the most kingly of the Kings, he who had lassoed +the bull. 'Our town is strong against the thunders of the sea +and of the sky!' + +'I want to go home,' whined the Psammead. + +'We can't go without HIM,' said Anthea firmly. + +'Jimmy,' she called, 'Jimmy!' and waved to him. He heard her, +and began to come towards her through the crowd. They could see +from the balcony the sea-captain edging his way out from among +the people. And his face was dead white, like paper. + +'To the hills!' he cried in a loud and terrible voice. And above +his voice came another voice, louder, more terrible--the voice of +the sea. + +The girls looked seaward. + +Across the smooth distance of the sea something huge and black +rolled towards the town. It was a wave, but a wave a hundred +feet in height, a wave that looked like a mountain--a wave rising +higher and higher till suddenly it seemed to break in two--one +half of it rushed out to sea again; the other-- + +'Oh!' cried Anthea, 'the town--the poor people!' + +'It's all thousands of years ago, really,' said Robert but his +voice trembled. They hid their eyes for a moment. They could +not bear to look down, for the wave had broken on the face of the +town, sweeping over the quays and docks, overwhelming the great +storehouses and factories, tearing gigantic stones from forts and +bridges, and using them as battering rams against the temples. +Great ships were swept over the roofs of the houses and dashed +down halfway up the hill among ruined gardens and broken +buildings. The water ground brown fishing-boats to powder on the +golden roofs of Palaces. + +Then the wave swept back towards the sea. + +'I want to go home,' cried the Psammead fiercely. + +'Oh, yes, yes!' said Jane, and the boys were ready--but the +learned gentleman had not come. + +Then suddenly they heard him dash up to the inner gallery, +crying-- + +'I MUST see the end of the dream.' He rushed up the higher +flight. + +The others followed him. They found themselves in a sort of +turret--roofed, but open to the air at the sides. + +The learned gentleman was leaning on the parapet, and as they +rejoined him the vast wave rushed back on the town. This time it +rose higher--destroyed more. + +'Come home,' cried the Psammead; 'THAT'S the LAST, I know it is! +That's the last--over there.' It pointed with a claw that +trembled. + +'Oh, come!' cried Jane, holding up the Amulet. + +'I WILL SEE the end of the dream,' cried the learned gentleman. + +'You'll never see anything else if you do,' said Cyril. 'Oh, +JIMMY!' appealed Anthea. 'I'll NEVER bring you out again!' + +'You'll never have the chance if you don't go soon,' said the +Psammead. + +'I WILL see the end of the dream,' said the learned gentleman +obstinately. + +The hills around were black with people fleeing from the villages +to the mountains. And even as they fled thin smoke broke from +the great white peak, and then a faint flash of flame. Then the +volcano began to throw up its mysterious fiery inside parts. The +earth trembled; ashes and sulphur showered down; a rain of fine +pumice-stone fell like snow on all the dry land. The elephants +from the forest rushed up towards the peaks; great lizards thirty +yards long broke from the mountain pools and rushed down towards +the sea. The snows melted and rushed down, first in avalanches, +then in roaring torrents. Great rocks cast up by the volcano +fell splashing in the sea miles away. + +'Oh, this is horrible!' cried Anthea. 'Come home, come home!' + +'The end of the dream,' gasped the learned gentleman. + +'Hold up the Amulet,' cried the Psammead suddenly. The place +where they stood was now crowded with men and women, and the +children were strained tight against the parapet. The turret +rocked and swayed; the wave had reached the golden wall. + +Jane held up the Amulet. + +'Now,' cried the Psammead, 'say the word!' + +And as Jane said it the Psammead leaped from its bag and bit the +hand of the learned gentleman. + +At the same moment the boys pushed him through the arch and all +followed him. + +He turned to look back, and through the arch he saw nothing but a +waste of waters, with above it the peak of the terrible mountain +with fire raging from it. + + +He staggered back to his chair. + +'What a ghastly dream!' he gasped. 'Oh, you're here, +my--er--dears. Can I do anything for you?' + +'You've hurt your hand,' said Anthea gently; 'let me bind it up.' + +The hand was indeed bleeding rather badly. + +The Psammead had crept back to its bag. All the children were +very white. + + +'Never again,' said the Psammead later on, 'will I go into the +Past with a grown-up person! I will say for you four, you do do +as you're told.' + +'We didn't even find the Amulet,' said Anthea later still. + +'Of course you didn't; it wasn't there. Only the stone it was +made of was there. It fell on to a ship miles away that managed +to escape and got to Egypt. _I_ could have told you that.' + +'I wish you had,' said Anthea, and her voice was still rather +shaky. 'Why didn't you?' + +'You never asked me,' said the Psammead very sulkily. 'I'm not +the sort of chap to go shoving my oar in where it's not wanted.' + +'Mr Ji-jimmy's friend will have something worth having to put in +his article now,' said Cyril very much later indeed. + +'Not he,' said Robert sleepily. 'The learned Ji-jimmy will think +it's a dream, and it's ten to one he never tells the other chap a +word about it at all.' + +Robert was quite right on both points. The learned gentleman +did. And he never did. + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +THE LITTLE BLACK GIRL AND JULIUS CAESAR + +A great city swept away by the sea, a beautiful country +devastated by an active volcano--these are not the sort of things +you see every day of the week. And when you do see them, no +matter how many other wonders you may have seen in your time, +such sights are rather apt to take your breath away. Atlantis +had certainly this effect on the breaths of Cyril, Robert, +Anthea, and Jane. + +They remained in a breathless state for some days. The learned +gentleman seemed as breathless as anyone; he spent a good deal of +what little breath he had in telling Anthea about a wonderful +dream he had. 'You would hardly believe,' he said, 'that anyone +COULD have such a detailed vision.' + +But Anthea could believe it, she said, quite easily. + +He had ceased to talk about thought-transference. He had now +seen too many wonders to believe that. + +In consequence of their breathless condition none of the children +suggested any new excursions through the Amulet. Robert voiced +the mood of the others when he said that they were 'fed up' with +Amulet for a bit. They undoubtedly were. + +As for the Psammead, it went to sand and stayed there, worn out +by the terror of the flood and the violent exercise it had had to +take in obedience to the inconsiderate wishes of the learned +gentleman and the Babylonian queen. + +The children let it sleep. The danger of taking it about among +strange people who might at any moment utter undesirable wishes +was becoming more and more plain. + +And there are pleasant things to be done in London without any +aid from Amulets or Psammeads. You can, for instance visit the +Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, +the Zoological Gardens, the various Parks, the Museums at South +Kensington, Madame Tussaud's Exhibition of Waxworks, or the +Botanical Gardens at Kew. You can go to Kew by river +steamer--and this is the way that the children would have gone if +they had gone at all. Only they never did, because it was when +they were discussing the arrangements for the journey, and what +they should take with them to eat and how much of it, and what +the whole thing would cost, that the adventure of the Little +Black Girl began to happen. + +The children were sitting on a seat in St James's Park. They had +been watching the pelican repulsing with careful dignity the +advances of the seagulls who are always so anxious to play games +with it. The pelican thinks, very properly, that it hasn't the +figure for games, so it spends most of its time pretending that +that is not the reason why it won't play. + +The breathlessness caused by Atlantis was wearing off a little. +Cyril, who always wanted to understand all about everything, was +turning things over in his mind. + +'I'm not; I'm only thinking,' he answered when Robert asked him +what he was so grumpy about. 'I'll tell you when I've thought it +all out.' + +'If it's about the Amulet I don't want to hear it,' said Jane. + +'Nobody asked you to,' retorted Cyril mildly, 'and I haven't +finished my inside thinking about it yet. Let's go to Kew in the +meantime.' + +'I'd rather go in a steamer,' said Robert; and the girls laughed. + +'That's right,' said Cyril, 'BE funny. I would.' + +'Well, he was, rather,' said Anthea. + +'I wouldn't think, Squirrel, if it hurts you so,' said Robert +kindly. + +'Oh, shut up,' said Cyril, 'or else talk about Kew.' + +'I want to see the palms there,' said Anthea hastily, 'to see if +they're anything like the ones on the island where we united the +Cook and the Burglar by the Reverend Half-Curate.' + +All disagreeableness was swept away in a pleasant tide of +recollections, and 'Do you remember ...?' they said. 'Have you +forgotten ...?' + +'My hat!' remarked Cyril pensively, as the flood of reminiscence +ebbed a little; 'we have had some times.' + +'We have that,' said Robert. + +'Don't let's have any more,' said Jane anxiously. + +'That's what I was thinking about,' Cyril replied; and just then +they heard the Little Black Girl sniff. She was quite close to +them. + +She was not really a little black girl. She was shabby and not +very clean, and she had been crying so much that you could hardly +see, through the narrow chink between her swollen lids, how very +blue her eyes were. It was her dress that was black, and it was +too big and too long for her, and she wore a speckled +black-ribboned sailor hat that would have fitted a much bigger +head than her little flaxen one. And she stood looking at the +children and sniffing. + +'Oh, dear!' said Anthea, jumping up. 'Whatever is the matter?' + +She put her hand on the little girl's arm. It was rudely shaken +off. + +'You leave me be,' said the little girl. 'I ain't doing nothing +to you.' + +'But what is it?' Anthea asked. 'Has someone been hurting you?' + +'What's that to you?' said the little girl fiercely. 'YOU'RE all +right.' + +'Come away,' said Robert, pulling at Anthea's sleeve. 'She's a +nasty, rude little kid.' + +'Oh, no,' said Anthea. 'She's only dreadfully unhappy. What is +it?' she asked again. + +'Oh, YOU'RE all right,' the child repeated; 'YOU ain't agoin' to +the Union.' + +'Can't we take you home?' said Anthea; and Jane added, 'Where +does your mother live?' + +'She don't live nowheres--she's dead--so now!' said the little +girl fiercely, in tones of miserable triumph. Then she opened +her swollen eyes widely, stamped her foot in fury, and ran away. +She ran no further than to the next bench, flung herself down +there and began to cry without even trying not to. + +Anthea, quite at once, went to the little girl and put her arms +as tight as she could round the hunched-up black figure. + +'Oh, don't cry so, dear, don't, don't!' she whispered under the +brim of the large sailor hat, now very crooked indeed. 'Tell +Anthea all about it; Anthea'll help you. There, there, dear, +don't cry.' + +The others stood at a distance. One or two passers-by stared +curiously. + +The child was now only crying part of the time; the rest of the +time she seemed to be talking to Anthea. + +Presently Anthea beckoned Cyril. + +'It's horrible!' she said in a furious whisper, 'her father was a +carpenter and he was a steady man, and never touched a drop +except on a Saturday, and he came up to London for work, and +there wasn't any, and then he died; and her name is Imogen, and +she's nine come next November. And now her mother's dead, and +she's to stay tonight with Mrs Shrobsall--that's a landlady +that's been kind--and tomorrow the Relieving Officer is coming +for her, and she's going into the Union; that means the +Workhouse. It's too terrible. What can we do?' + +'Let's ask the learned gentleman,' said Jane brightly. + +And as no one else could think of anything better the whole party +walked back to Fitzroy Street as fast as it could, the little +girl holding tight to Anthea's hand and now not crying any more, +only sniffing gently. + +The learned gentleman looked up from his writing with the smile +that had grown much easier to him than it used to be. They were +quite at home in his room now; it really seemed to welcome them. +Even the mummy-case appeared to smile as if in its distant +superior ancient Egyptian way it were rather pleased to see them +than not. + +Anthea sat on the stairs with Imogen, who was nine come next +November, while the others went in and explained the difficulty. + +The learned gentleman listened with grave attention. + +'It really does seem rather rough luck,' Cyril concluded, +'because I've often heard about rich people who wanted children +most awfully--though I know _I_ never should--but they do. There +must be somebody who'd be glad to have her.' + +'Gipsies are awfully fond of children,' Robert hopefully said. +'They're always stealing them. Perhaps they'd have her.' + +'She's quite a nice little girl really,' Jane added; 'she was +only rude at first because we looked jolly and happy, and she +wasn't. You understand that, don't you?' + +'Yes,' said he, absently fingering a little blue image from +Egypt. 'I understand that very well. As you say, there must be +some home where she would be welcome.' He scowled thoughtfully +at the little blue image. + +Anthea outside thought the explanation was taking a very long +time. + +She was so busy trying to cheer and comfort the little black girl +that she never noticed the Psammead who, roused from sleep by her +voice, had shaken itself free of sand, and was coming crookedly +up the stairs. It was close to her before she saw it. She +picked it up and settled it in her lap. + +'What is it?' asked the black child. 'Is it a cat or a +organ-monkey, or what?' + +And then Anthea heard the learned gentleman say-- + +'Yes, I wish we could find a home where they would be glad to +have her,' and instantly she felt the Psammead begin to blow +itself out as it sat on her lap. + +She jumped up lifting the Psammead in her skirt, and holding +Imogen by the hand, rushed into the learned gentleman's room. + +'At least let's keep together,' she cried. 'All hold +hands--quick!' + +The circle was like that formed for the Mulberry Bush or +Ring-o'-Roses. And Anthea was only able to take part in it by +holding in her teeth the hem of her frock which, thus supported, +formed a bag to hold the Psammead. + +'Is it a game?' asked the learned gentleman feebly. No one +answered. + +There was a moment of suspense; then came that curious +upside-down, inside-out sensation which one almost always feels +when transported from one place to another by magic. Also there +was that dizzy dimness of sight which comes on these occasions. + +The mist cleared, the upside-down, inside-out sensation subsided, +and there stood the six in a ring, as before, only their twelve +feet, instead of standing on the carpet of the learned +gentleman's room, stood on green grass. Above them, instead of +the dusky ceiling of the Fitzroy Street floor, was a pale blue +sky. And where the walls had been and the painted mummy-case, +were tall dark green trees, oaks and ashes, and in between the +trees and under them tangled bushes and creeping ivy. There were +beech-trees too, but there was nothing under them but their own +dead red drifted leaves, and here and there a delicate green +fern-frond. + +And there they stood in a circle still holding hands, as though +they were playing Ring-o'-Roses or the Mulberry Bush. just six +people hand in hand in a wood. That sounds simple, but then you +must remember that they did not know WHERE the wood was, and +what's more, they didn't know WHEN then wood was. There was a +curious sort of feeling that made the learned gentleman say-- + +'Another dream, dear me!' and made the children almost certain +that they were in a time a very long while ago. As for little +Imogen, she said, 'Oh, my!' and kept her mouth very much open +indeed. + +'Where are we?' Cyril asked the Psammead. + +'In Britain,' said the Psammead. + +'But when?' asked Anthea anxiously. + +'About the year fifty-five before the year you reckon time from,' +said the Psammead crossly. 'Is there anything else you want to +know?' it added, sticking its head out of the bag formed by +Anthea's blue linen frock, and turning its snail's eyes to right +and left. 'I've been here before--it's very little changed.' +'Yes, but why here?' asked Anthea. + +'Your inconsiderate friend,' the Psammead replied, 'wished to +find some home where they would be glad to have that unattractive +and immature female human being whom you have picked up--gracious +knows how. In Megatherium days properly brought-up children +didn't talk to shabby strangers in parks. Your thoughtless +friend wanted a place where someone would be glad to have this +undesirable stranger. And now here you are!' + +'I see we are,' said Anthea patiently, looking round on the tall +gloom of the forest. 'But why HERE? Why NOW?' + +'You don't suppose anyone would want a child like that in YOUR +times--in YOUR towns?' said the Psammead in irritated tones. +'You've got your country into such a mess that there's no room +for half your children--and no one to want them.' + +'That's not our doing, you know,' said Anthea gently. + +'And bringing me here without any waterproof or anything,' said +the Psammead still more crossly, 'when everyone knows how damp +and foggy Ancient Britain was.' + +'Here, take my coat,' said Robert, taking it off. Anthea spread +the coat on the ground and, putting the Psammead on it, folded it +round so that only the eyes and furry ears showed. + +'There,' she said comfortingly. 'Now if it does begin to look +like rain, I can cover you up in a minute. Now what are we to +do?' + +The others who had stopped holding hands crowded round to hear +the answer to this question. Imogen whispered in an awed tone-- + +'Can't the organ monkey talk neither! I thought it was only +parrots!' + +'Do?' replied the Psammead. 'I don't care what you do!' And it +drew head and ears into the tweed covering of Robert's coat. + +The others looked at each other. + +'It's only a dream,' said the learned gentleman hopefully; +'something is sure to happen if we can prevent ourselves from +waking up.' + +And sure enough, something did. + +The brooding silence of the dark forest was broken by the +laughter of children and the sound of voices. + +'Let's go and see,' said Cyril. + +'It's only a dream,' said the learned gentleman to Jane, who hung +back; 'if you don't go with the tide of a dream--if you +resist--you wake up, you know.' + +There was a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a +silly person's idea of a path. They went along this in Indian +file, the learned gentleman leading. + +Quite soon they came to a large clearing in the forest. There +were a number of houses--huts perhaps you would have called +them--with a sort of mud and wood fence. + +'It's like the old Egyptian town,' whispered Anthea. + +And it was, rather. + +Some children, with no clothes on at all, were playing what +looked like Ring-o'-Roses or Mulberry Bush. That is to say, they +were dancing round in a ring, holding hands. On a grassy bank +several women, dressed in blue and white robes and tunics of +beast-skins sat watching the playing children. + +The children from Fitzroy Street stood on the fringe of the +forest looking at the games. One woman with long, fair braided +hair sat a little apart from the others, and there was a look in +her eyes as she followed the play of the children that made +Anthea feel sad and sorry. + +'None of those little girls is her own little girl,' thought +Anthea. + +The little black-clad London child pulled at Anthea's sleeve. + +'Look,' she said, 'that one there--she's precious like mother; +mother's 'air was somethink lovely, when she 'ad time to comb it +out. Mother wouldn't never a-beat me if she'd lived 'ere--I +don't suppose there's e'er a public nearer than Epping, do you, +Miss?' + +In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the +forest. The sad-eyed woman saw her. She stood up, her thin face +lighted up with a radiance like sunrise, her long, lean arms +stretched towards the London child. + +'Imogen!' she cried--at least the word was more like that than +any other word--'Imogen!' + +There was a moment of great silence; the naked children paused in +their play, the women on the bank stared anxiously. + +'Oh, it IS mother--it IS!' cried Imogen-from-London, and rushed +across the cleared space. She and her mother clung together--so +closely, so strongly that they stood an instant like a statue +carved in stone. + +Then the women crowded round. 'It IS my Imogen!' cried the woman. + +'Oh it is! And she wasn't eaten by wolves. She's come back to +me. Tell me, my darling, how did you escape? Where have you +been? Who has fed and clothed you?' + +'I don't know nothink,' said Imogen. + +'Poor child!' whispered the women who crowded round, 'the terror +of the wolves has turned her brain.' + +'But you know ME?' said the fair-haired woman. + +And Imogen, clinging with black-clothed arms to the bare neck, +answered-- + +'Oh, yes, mother, I know YOU right 'nough.' + +'What is it? What do they say?' the learned gentleman asked +anxiously. + +'You wished to come where someone wanted the child,' said the +Psammead. 'The child says this is her mother.' + +'And the mother?' + +'You can see,' said the Psammead. + +'But is she really? Her child, I mean?' + +'Who knows?' said the Psammead; 'but each one fills the empty +place in the other's heart. It is enough.' + +'Oh,' said the learned gentleman, 'this is a good dream. I wish +the child might stay in the dream.' + +The Psammead blew itself out and granted the wish. So Imogen's +future was assured. She had found someone to want her. + +'If only all the children that no one wants,' began the learned +gentleman--but the woman interrupted. She came towards them. + +'Welcome, all!' she cried. 'I am the Queen, and my child tells +me that you have befriended her; and this I well believe, looking +on your faces. Your garb is strange, but faces I can read. The +child is bewitched, I see that well, but in this she speaks +truth. Is it not so?' + +The children said it wasn't worth mentioning. + +I wish you could have seen all the honours and kindnesses +lavished on the children and the learned gentleman by those +ancient Britons. + +You would have thought, to see them, that a child was something +to make a fuss about, not a bit of rubbish to be hustled about +the streets and hidden away in the Workhouse. It wasn't as grand +as the entertainment at Babylon, but somehow it was more +satisfying. + +'I think you children have some wonderful influence on me,' said +the learned gentleman. 'I never dreamed such dreams before I +knew you.' + +It was when they were alone that night under the stars where the +Britons had spread a heap Of dried fern for them to sleep on, +that Cyril spoke. + +'Well,' he said, 'we've made it all right for Imogen, and had a +jolly good time. I vote we get home again before the fighting +begins.' + +'What fighting?' asked Jane sleepily. + +'Why, Julius Caesar, you little goat,' replied her kind brother. +'Don't you see that if this is the year fifty-five, Julius Caesar +may happen at any moment.' + +'I thought you liked Caesar,' said Robert. + +'So I do--in the history. But that's different from being killed +by his soldiers.' + +'If we saw Caesar we might persuade him not to,' said Anthea. + +'YOU persuade CAESAR,' Robert laughed. + +The learned gentleman, before anyone could stop him, said, 'I +only wish we could see Caesar some time.' + +And, of course, in just the little time the Psammead took to blow +itself out for wish-giving, the five, or six counting the +Psammead, found themselves in Caesar's camp, just outside +Caesar's tent. And they saw Caesar. The Psammead must have +taken advantage of the loose wording of the learned gentleman's +wish, for it was not the same time of day as that on which the +wish had been uttered among the dried ferns. It was sunset, and +the great man sat on a chair outside his tent gazing over the sea +towards Britain--everyone knew without being told that it was +towards Britain. Two golden eagles on the top of posts stood on +each side of the tent, and on the flaps of the tent which was +very gorgeous to look at were the letters S.P.Q.R. + +The great man turned unchanged on the newcomers the august glance +that he had turned on the violet waters of the Channel. Though +they had suddenly appeared out of nothing, Caesar never showed by +the faintest movement of an eyelid, by the least tightening of +that firm mouth, that they were not some long expected embassy. +He waved a calm hand towards the sentinels, who sprang weapons in +hand towards the newcomers. + +'Back!' he said in a voice that thrilled like music. 'Since when +has Caesar feared children and students?' + +To the children he seemed to speak in the only language they +knew; but the learned gentleman heard--in rather a strange +accent, but quite intelligibly--the lips of Caesar speaking in +the Latin tongue, and in that tongue, a little stiffly, he +answered-- + +'It is a dream, O Caesar.' + +'A dream?' repeated Caesar. 'What is a dream?' + +'This,' said the learned gentleman. + +'Not it,' said Cyril, 'it's a sort of magic. We come out of +another time and another place.' + +'And we want to ask you not to trouble about conquering Britain,' +said Anthea; 'it's a poor little place, not worth bothering +about.' + +'Are you from Britain?' the General asked. 'Your clothes are +uncouth, but well woven, and your hair is short as the hair of +Roman citizens, not long like the hair of barbarians, yet such I +deem you to be.' 'We're not,' said Jane with angry eagerness; +'we're not barbarians at all. We come from the country where the +sun never sets, and we've read about you in books; and our +country's full of fine things--St Paul's, and the Tower of +London, and Madame Tussaud's Exhibition, and--' Then the others +stopped her. + +'Don't talk nonsense,' said Robert in a bitter undertone. + +Caesar looked at the children a moment in silence. Then he +called a soldier and spoke with him apart. Then he said aloud-- + +'You three elder children may go where you will within the camp. +Few children are privileged to see the camp of Caesar. The +student and the smaller girl-child will remain here with me.' + +Nobody liked this; but when Caesar said a thing that thing was +so, and there was an end to it. So the three went. + +Left alone with Jane and the learned gentleman, the great Roman +found it easy enough to turn them inside out. But it was not +easy, even for him, to make head or tail of the insides of their +minds when he had got at them. + +The learned gentleman insisted that the whole thing was a dream, +and refused to talk much, on the ground that if he did he would +wake up. + +Jane, closely questioned, was full of information about railways, +electric lights, balloons, men-of-war, cannons, and dynamite. + +'And do they fight with swords?' asked the General. + +'Yes, swords and guns and cannons.' + +Caesar wanted to know what guns were. + +'You fire them,' said Jane, 'and they go bang, and people fall +down dead.' + +'But what are guns like?' + +Jane found them hard to describe. + +'But Robert has a toy one in his pocket,' she said. So the +others were recalled. + +The boys explained the pistol to Caesar very fully, and he looked +at it with the greatest interest. It was a two-shilling pistol, +the one that had done such good service in the old Egyptian +village. + +'I shall cause guns to be made,' said Caesar, 'and you will be +detained till I know whether you have spoken the truth. I had +just decided that Britain was not worth the bother of invading. +But what you tell me decides me that it is very much worth +while.' + +'But it's all nonsense,' said Anthea. 'Britain is just a savage +sort of island--all fogs and trees and big rivers. But the +people are kind. We know a little girl there named Imogen. And +it's no use your making guns because you can't fire them without +gunpowder, and that won't be invented for hundreds of years, and +we don't know how to make it, and we can't tell you. Do go +straight home, dear Caesar, and let poor little Britain alone.' + +'But this other girl-child says--' said Caesar. + +'All Jane's been telling you is what it's going to be,' Anthea +interrupted, 'hundreds and hundreds of years from now.' + +'The little one is a prophetess, eh?' said Caesar, with a +whimsical look. 'Rather young for the business, isn't she?' + +'You can call her a prophetess if you like,' said Cyril, 'but +what Anthea says is true.' + +'Anthea?' said Caesar. 'That's a Greek name.' + +'Very likely,' said Cyril, worriedly. 'I say, I do wish you'd +give up this idea of conquering Britain. It's not worth while, +really it isn't!' + +'On the contrary,' said Caesar, 'what you've told me has decided +me to go, if it's only to find out what Britain is really like. +Guards, detain these children.' + +'Quick,' said Robert, 'before the guards begin detaining. We had +enough of that in Babylon.' + +Jane held up the Amulet away from the sunset, and said the word. +The learned gentleman was pushed through and the others more +quickly than ever before passed through the arch back into their +own times and the quiet dusty sitting-room of the learned +gentleman. + + +It is a curious fact that when Caesar was encamped on the coast +of Gaul--somewhere near Boulogne it was, I believe--he was +sitting before his tent in the glow of the sunset, looking out +over the violet waters of the English Channel. Suddenly he +started, rubbed his eyes, and called his secretary. The young +man came quickly from within the tent. + +'Marcus,' said Caesar. 'I have dreamed a very wonderful dream. +Some of it I forget, but I remember enough to decide what was not +before determined. Tomorrow the ships that have been brought +round from the Ligeris shall be provisioned. We shall sail for +this three-cornered island. First, we will take but two legions. + +This, if what we have heard be true, should suffice. But if my +dream be true, then a hundred legions will not suffice. For the +dream I dreamed was the most wonderful that ever tormented the +brain even of Caesar. And Caesar has dreamed some strange things +in his time.' + + +'And if you hadn't told Caesar all that about how things are now, +he'd never have invaded Britain,' said Robert to Jane as they sat +down to tea. + +'Oh, nonsense,' said Anthea, pouring out; 'it was all settled +hundreds of years ago.' + +'I don't know,' said Cyril. 'Jam, please. This about time being +only a thingummy of thought is very confusIng. If everything +happens at the same time--' + +'It CAN'T!' said Anthea stoutly, 'the present's the present and +the past's the past.' + +'Not always,' said Cyril. + +'When we were in the Past the present was the future. Now then!' +he added triumphantly. + +And Anthea could not deny it. + +'I should have liked to see more of the camp,' said Robert. + +'Yes, we didn't get much for our money--but Imogen is happy, +that's one thing,' said Anthea. 'We left her happy in the Past. +I've often seen about people being happy in the Past, in poetry +books. I see what it means now.' + +'It's not a bad idea,' said the Psammead sleepily, putting its +head out of its bag and taking it in again suddenly, 'being left +in the Past.' + +Everyone remembered this afterwards, when-- + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +BEFORE PHARAOH + +It was the day after the adventure of Julius Caesar and the +Little Black Girl that Cyril, bursting into the bathroom to wash +his hands for dinner (you have no idea how dirty they were, for +he had been playing shipwrecked mariners all the morning on the +leads at the back of the house, where the water-cistern is), +found Anthea leaning her elbows on the edge of the bath, and +crying steadily into it. + +'Hullo!' he said, with brotherly concern, 'what's up now? +Dinner'll be cold before you've got enough salt-water for a +bath.' + +'Go away,' said Anthea fiercely. 'I hate you! I hate +everybody!' + +There was a stricken pause. + +'_I_ didn't know,' said Cyril tamely. + +'Nobody ever does know anything,' sobbed Anthea. + +'I didn't know you were waxy. I thought you'd just hurt your +fingers with the tap again like you did last week,' Cyril +carefully explained. + +'Oh--fingers!' sneered Anthea through her sniffs. + +'Here, drop it, Panther,' he said uncomfortably. 'You haven't +been having a row or anything?' + +'No,' she said. 'Wash your horrid hands, for goodness' sake, if +that's what you came for, or go.' + +Anthea was so seldom cross that when she was cross the others +were always more surprised than angry. + +Cyril edged along the side of the bath and stood beside her. He +put his hand on her arm. + +'Dry up, do,' he said, rather tenderly for him. And, finding +that though she did not at once take his advice she did not seem +to resent it, he put his arm awkwardly across her shoulders and +rubbed his head against her ear. + +'There!' he said, in the tone of one administering a priceless +cure for all possible sorrows. 'Now, what's up?' + +'Promise you won't laugh?' + +'I don't feel laughish myself,' said Cyril, dismally. + +'Well, then,' said Anthea, leaning her ear against his head, +'it's Mother.' + +'What's the matter with Mother?' asked Cyril, with apparent want +of sympathy. 'She was all right in her letter this morning.' + +'Yes; but I want her so.' + +'You're not the only one,' said Cyril briefly, and the brevity of +his tone admitted a good deal. + +'Oh, yes,' said Anthea, 'I know. We all want her all the time. +But I want her now most dreadfully, awfully much. I never wanted +anything so much. That Imogen child--the way the ancient British +Queen cuddled her up! And Imogen wasn't me, and the Queen was +Mother. And then her letter this morning! And about The Lamb +liking the salt bathing! And she bathed him in this very bath +the night before she went away--oh, oh, oh!' + +Cyril thumped her on the back. + +'Cheer up,' he said. 'You know my inside thinking that I was +doing? Well, that was partly about Mother. We'll soon get her +back. If you'll chuck it, like a sensible kid, and wash your +face, I'll tell you about it. That's right. You let me get to +the tap. Can't you stop crying? Shall I put the door-key down +your back?' + +'That's for noses,' said Anthea, 'and I'm not a kid any more than +you are,' but she laughed a little, and her mouth began to get +back into its proper shape. You know what an odd shape your +mouth gets into when you cry in earnest. + +'Look here,' said Cyril, working the soap round and round between +his hands in a thick slime of grey soapsuds. 'I've been +thinking. We've only just PLAYED with the Amulet so far. We've +got to work it now--WORK it for all it's worth. And it isn't +only Mother either. There's Father out there all among the +fighting. I don't howl about it, but I THINK--Oh, bother the +soap!' The grey-lined soap had squirted out under the pressure +of his fingers, and had hit Anthea's chin with as much force as +though it had been shot from a catapult. + +'There now,' she said regretfully, 'now I shall have to wash my +face.' + +'You'd have had to do that anyway,' said Cyril with conviction. +'Now, my idea's this. You know missionaries?' + +'Yes,' said Anthea, who did not know a single one. + +'Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, +and hats, and braces, and really useful things--things the +savages haven't got, and never heard about. And the savages love +them for their kind generousness, and give them pearls, and +shells, and ivory, and cassowaries. And that's the way--' + +'Wait a sec,' said Anthea, splashing. 'I can't hear what you're +saying. Shells and--' + +'Shells, and things like that. The great thing is to get people +to love you by being generous. And that's what we've got to do. +Next time we go into the Past we'll regularly fit out the +expedition. You remember how the Babylonian Queen froze on to +that pocket-book? Well, we'll take things like that. And offer +them in exchange for a sight of the Amulet.' + +'A sight of it is not much good.' + +'No, silly. But, don't you see, when we've seen it we shall know +where it is, and we can go and take it in the night when +everybody is asleep.' + +'It wouldn't be stealing, would it?' said Anthea thoughtfully, +'because it will be such an awfully long time ago when we do it. +Oh, there's that bell again.' + +As soon as dinner was eaten (it was tinned salmon and lettuce, +and a jam tart), and the cloth cleared away, the idea was +explained to the others, and the Psammead was aroused from sand, +and asked what it thought would be good merchandise with which to +buy the affection of say, the Ancient Egyptians, and whether it +thought the Amulet was likely to be found in the Court of +Pharaoh. + +But it shook its head, and shot out its snail's eyes hopelessly. + +'I'm not allowed to play in this game,' it said. 'Of course I +COULD find out in a minute where the thing was, only I mayn't. +But I may go so far as to own that your idea of taking things +with you isn't a bad one. And I shouldn't show them all at once. +Take small things and conceal them craftily about your persons.' + +This advice seemed good. Soon the table was littered over with +things which the children thought likely to interest the Ancient +Egyptians. Anthea brought dolls, puzzle blocks, a wooden +tea-service, a green leather case with Necessaire written on it +in gold letters. Aunt Emma had once given it to Anthea, and it +had then contained scissors, penknife, bodkin, stiletto, thimble, +corkscrew, and glove-buttoner. The scissors, knife, and thimble, +and penknife were, of course, lost, but the other things were +there and as good as new. Cyril contributed lead soldiers, a +cannon, a catapult, a tin-opener, a tie-clip, and a tennis ball, +and a padlock--no key. Robert collected a candle ('I don't +suppose they ever saw a self-fitting paraffin one,' he said), a +penny Japanese pin-tray, a rubber stamp with his father's name +and address on it, and a piece of putty. + +Jane added a key-ring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that +had held cold-cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, +and a key--no lock. + +'We can't take all this rubbish,' said Robert, with some scorn. +'We must just each choose one thing.' + +The afternoon passed very agreeably in the attempt to choose from +the table the four most suitable objects. But the four children +could not agree what was suitable, and at last Cyril said-- + +'Look here, let's each be blindfolded and reach out, and the +first thing you touch you stick to.' + +This was done. + +Cyril touched the padlock. + +Anthea got the Necessaire. + +Robert clutched the candle. + +Jane picked up the tie-clip. + +'It's not much,' she said. 'I don't believe Ancient Egyptians +wore ties.' + +'Never mind,' said Anthea. 'I believe it's luckier not to really +choose. In the stories it's always the thing the wood-cutter's +son picks up in the forest, and almost throws away because he +thinks it's no good, that turns out to be the magic thing in the +end; or else someone's lost it, and he is rewarded with the hand +of the King's daughter in marriage.' + +'I don't want any hands in marriage, thank you.' said Cyril +firmly. + +'Nor yet me,' said Robert. 'It's always the end of the +adventures when it comes to the marriage hands.' + +'ARE we ready?' said Anthea. + +'It IS Egypt we're going to, isn't it?--nice Egypt?' said Jane. +'I won't go anywhere I don't know about--like that dreadful +big-wavy burning-mountain city,' she insisted. + +Then the Psammead was coaxed into its bag. 'I say,' said Cyril +suddenly, 'I'm rather sick of kings. And people notice you so in +palaces. Besides the Amulet's sure to be in a Temple. Let's +just go among the common people, and try to work ourselves up by +degrees. We might get taken on as Temple assistants.' + +'Like beadles,' said Anthea, 'or vergers. They must have +splendid chances of stealing the Temple treasures.' + +'Righto!' was the general rejoinder. The charm was held up. It +grew big once again, and once again the warm golden Eastern light +glowed softly beyond it. + +As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang +in their ears. They went suddenly from the quiet of Fitzroy +Street dining-room into a very angry Eastern crowd, a crowd much +too angry to notice them. They edged through it to the wall of a +house and stood there. The crowd was of men, women, and +children. They were of all sorts of complexions, and pictures of +them might have been coloured by any child with a shilling +paint-box. The colours that child would have used for +complexions would have been yellow ochre, red ochre, light red, +sepia, and indian ink. But their faces were painted +already--black eyebrows and lashes, and some red lips. The women +wore a sort of pinafore with shoulder straps, and loose things +wound round their heads and shoulders. The men wore very little +clothing--for they were the working people--and the Egyptian boys +and girls wore nothing at all, unless you count the little +ornaments hung on chains round their necks and waists. The +children saw all this before they could hear anything distinctly. + +Everyone was shouting so. + +But a voice sounded above the other voices, and presently it was +speaking in a silence. + +'Comrades and fellow workers,' it said, and it was the voice of a +tall, coppery-coloured man who had climbed into a chariot that +had been stopped by the crowd. Its owner had bolted, muttering +something about calling the Guards, and now the man spoke from +it. 'Comrades and fellow workers, how long are we to endure the +tyranny of our masters, who live in idleness and luxury on the +fruit of our toil? They only give us a bare subsistence wage, +and they live on the fat of the land. We labour all our lives to +keep them in wanton luxury. Let us make an end of it!' + +A roar of applause answered him. + +'How are you going to do it?' cried a voice. + +'You look out,' cried another, 'or you'll get yourself into +trouble.' + +'I've heard almost every single word of that,' whispered Robert, +'in Hyde Park last Sunday!' + +'Let us strike for more bread and onions and beer, and a longer +mid-day rest,' the speaker went on. 'You are tired, you are +hungry, you are thirsty. You are poor, your wives and children +are pining for food. The barns of the rich are full to bursting +with the corn we want, the corn our labour has grown. To the +granaries!' + +'To the granaries!' cried half the crowd; but another voice +shouted clear above the tumult, 'To Pharaoh! To the King! Let's +present a petition to the King! He will listen to the voice of +the oppressed!' + +For a moment the crowd swayed one way and another--first towards +the granaries and then towards the palace. Then, with a rush +like that of an imprisoned torrent suddenly set free, it surged +along the street towards the palace, and the children were +carried with it. Anthea found it difficult to keep the Psammead +from being squeezed very uncomfortably. + +The crowd swept through the streets of dull-looking houses with +few windows, very high up, across the market where people were +not buying but exchanging goods. In a momentary pause Robert saw +a basket of onions exchanged for a hair comb and five fish for a +string of beads. The people in the market seemed better off than +those in the crowd; they had finer clothes, and more of them. +They were the kind of people who, nowadays, would have lived at +Brixton or Brockley. + +'What's the trouble now?' a languid, large-eyed lady in a +crimped, half-transparent linen dress, with her black hair very +much braided and puffed out, asked of a date-seller. + +'Oh, the working-men--discontented as usual,' the man answered. +'Listen to them. Anyone would think it mattered whether they had +a little more or less to eat. Dregs of society!' said the +date-seller. + +'Scum!' said the lady. + +'And I've heard THAT before, too,' said Robert. + +At that moment the voice of the crowd changed, from anger to +doubt, from doubt to fear. There were other voices shouting; +they shouted defiance and menace, and they came nearer very +quickly. There was the rattle of wheels and the pounding of +hoofs. A voice shouted, 'Guards!' + +'The Guards! The Guards!' shouted another voice, and the crowd +of workmen took up the cry. 'The Guards! Pharaoh's Guards!' +And swaying a little once more, the crowd hung for a moment as it +were balanced. Then as the trampling hoofs came nearer the +workmen fled dispersed, up alleys and into the courts of houses, +and the Guards in their embossed leather chariots swept down the +street at the gallop, their wheels clattering over the stones, +and their dark- coloured, blue tunics blown open and back with +the wind of their going. + +'So THAT riot's over,' said the crimped-linen-dressed lady; +'that's a blessing! And did you notice the Captain of the Guard? +What a very handsome man he was, to be sure!' + +The four children had taken advantage of the moment's pause +before the crowd turned to fly, to edge themselves and drag each +other into an arched doorway. + +Now they each drew a long breath and looked at the others. + +'We're well out of THAT,' said Cyril. + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'but I do wish the poor men hadn't been +driven back before they could get to the King. He might have +done something for them.' + +'Not if he was the one in the Bible he wouldn't,' said Jane. 'He +had a hard heart.' 'Ah, that was the Moses one,' Anthea +explained. 'The Joseph one was quite different. I should like +to see Pharaoh's house. I wonder whether it's like the Egyptian +Court in the Crystal Palace.' + +'I thought we decided to try to get taken on in a Temple,' said +Cyril in injured tones. + +'Yes, but we've got to know someone first. Couldn't we make +friends with a Temple doorkeeper--we might give him the padlock +or something. I wonder which are temples and which are palaces,' +Robert added, glancing across the market-place to where an +enormous gateway with huge side buildings towered towards the +sky. To right and left of it were other buildings only a little +less magnificent. + +'Did you wish to seek out the Temple of Amen Ra?' asked a soft +voice behind them, 'or the Temple of Mut, or the Temple of +Khonsu?' + +They turned to find beside them a young man. He was shaved clean +from head to foot, and on his feet were light papyrus sandals. +He was clothed in a linen tunic of white, embroidered heavily in +colours. He was gay with anklets, bracelets, and armlets of +gold, richly inlaid. He wore a ring on his finger, and he had a +short jacket of gold embroidery something like the Zouave +soldiers wear, and on his neck was a gold collar with many +amulets hanging from it. But among the amulets the children +could see none like theirs. + +'It doesn't matter which Temple,' said Cyril frankly. + +'Tell me your mission,' said the young man. 'I am a divine +father of the Temple of Amen Ra and perhaps I can help you.' + +'Well,' said Cyril, 'we've come from the great Empire on which +the sun never sets.' + +'I thought somehow that you'd come from some odd, out-of-the-way +spot,' said the priest with courtesy. + +'And we've seen a good many palaces. We thought we should like +to see a Temple, for a change,' said Robert. + +The Psammead stirred uneasily in its embroidered bag. + +'Have you brought gifts to the Temple?' asked the priest +cautiously. + +'We HAVE got some gifts,' said Cyril with equal caution. 'You +see there's magic mixed up in it. So we can't tell you +everything. But we don't want to give our gifts for nothing.' + +'Beware how you insult the god,' said the priest sternly. 'I +also can do magic. I can make a waxen image of you, and I can +say words which, as the wax image melts before the fire, will +make you dwindle away and at last perish miserably.' + +'Pooh!' said Cyril stoutly, 'that's nothing. _I_ can make FIRE +itself!' + +'I should jolly well like to see you do it,' said the priest +unbelievingly. + +'Well, you shall,' said Cyril, 'nothing easier. Just stand close +round me.' + +'Do you need no preparation--no fasting, no incantations?' The +priest's tone was incredulous. + +'The incantation's quite short,' said Cyril, taking the hint; +'and as for fasting, it's not needed in MY sort of magic. Union +Jack, Printing Press, Gunpowder, Rule Britannia! Come, Fire, at +the end of this little stick!' + +He had pulled a match from his pocket, and as he ended the +incantation which contained no words that it seemed likely the +Egyptian had ever heard he stooped in the little crowd of his +relations and the priest and struck the match on his boot. He +stood up, shielding the flame with one hand. + +'See?' he said, with modest pride. 'Here, take it into your +hand.' + +'No, thank you,' said the priest, swiftly backing. 'Can you do +that again?' + +'Yes.' + +'Then come with me to the great double house of Pharaoh. He +loves good magic, and he will raise you to honour and glory. +There's no need of secrets between initiates,' he went on +confidentially. 'The fact is, I am out of favour at present +owing to a little matter of failure of prophecy. I told him a +beautiful princess would be sent to him from Syria, and, lo! a +woman thirty years old arrived. But she WAS a beautiful woman +not so long ago. Time is only a mode of thought, you know.' + +The children thrilled to the familiar words. + +'So you know that too, do you?' said Cyril. + +'It is part of the mystery of all magic, is it not?' said the +priest. 'Now if I bring you to Pharaoh the little unpleasantness +I spoke of will be forgotten. And I will ask Pharaoh, the Great +House, Son of the Sun, and Lord of the South and North, to decree +that you shall lodge in the Temple. Then you can have a good +look round, and teach me your magic. And I will teach you mine.' + +This idea seemed good--at least it was better than any other +which at that moment occurred to anybody, so they followed the +priest through the city. + +The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the +priest explained, were built within walls twenty to twenty-five +feet high, and such windows as showed in the walls were very high +up. The tops of palm-trees showed above the walls. The poor +people's houses were little square huts with a door and two +windows, and smoke coming out of a hole in the back. + +'The poor Egyptians haven't improved so very much in their +building since the first time we came to Egypt,' whispered Cyril +to Anthea. + +The huts were roofed with palm branches, and everywhere there +were chickens, and goats, and little naked children kicking about +in the yellow dust. On one roof was a goat, who had climbed up +and was eating the dry palm-leaves with snorts and head-tossings +of delight. Over every house door was some sort of figure or +shape. + +'Amulets,' the priest explained, 'to keep off the evil eye.' + +'I don't think much of your "nice Egypt",' Robert whispered to +Jane; 'it's simply not a patch on Babylon.' + +'Ah, you wait till you see the palace,' Jane whispered back. + +The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they +had yet seen that day, though it would have made but a poor show +beside that of the Babylonian King. They came to it through a +great square pillared doorway of sandstone that stood in a high +brick wall. The shut doors were of massive cedar, with bronze +hinges, and were studded with bronze nails. At the side was a +little door and a wicket gate, and through this the priest led +the children. He seemed to know a word that made the sentries +make way for him. + +Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of +trees and flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus +flowers at the margin, and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and +looking, as Jane said, quite modern. + +'The guard-chamber, the store-houses, the queen's house,' said +the priest, pointing them out. + +They passed through open courtyards, paved with flat stones, and +the priest whispered to a guard at a great inner gate. + +'We are fortunate,' he said to the children, 'Pharaoh is even now +in the Court of Honour. Now, don't forget to be overcome with +respect and admiration. It won't do any harm if you fall flat on +your faces. And whatever you do, don't speak until you're spoken +to.' + +'There used to be that rule in our country,' said Robert, 'when +my father was a little boy.' + +At the outer end of the great hall a crowd of people were arguing +with and even shoving the Guards, who seemed to make it a rule +not to let anyone through unless they were bribed to do it. The +children heard several promises of the utmost richness, and +wondered whether they would ever be kept. + +All round the hall were pillars of painted wood. The roof was of +cedar, gorgeously inlaid. About half-way up the hall was a wide, +shallow step that went right across the hall; then a little +farther on another; and then a steep flight of narrower steps, +leading right up to the throne on which Pharaoh sat. He sat +there very splendid, his red and white double crown on his head, +and his sceptre in his hand. The throne had a canopy of wood and +wooden pillars painted in bright colours. On a low, broad bench +that ran all round the hall sat the friends, relatives, and +courtiers of the King, leaning on richly-covered cushions. + +The priest led the children up the steps till they all stood +before the throne; and then, suddenly, he fell on his face with +hands outstretched. The others did the same, Anthea falling +very carefully because of the Psammead. + +'Raise them,' said the voice of Pharaoh, 'that they may speak to +me.' + +The officers of the King's household raised them. + +'Who are these strangers?' Pharaoh asked, and added very crossly, +'And what do you mean, Rekh-mara, by daring to come into my +presence while your innocence is not established?' + +'Oh, great King,' said the young priest, 'you are the very image +of Ra, and the likeness of his son Horus in every respect. You +know the thoughts of the hearts of the gods and of men, and you +have divined that these strangers are the children of the +children of the vile and conquered Kings of the Empire where the +sun never sets. They know a magic not known to the Egyptians. +And they come with gifts in their hands as tribute to Pharaoh, in +whose heart is the wisdom of the gods, and on his lips their +truth.' + +'That is all very well,' said Pharaoh, 'but where are the gifts?' + +The children, bowing as well as they could in their embarrassment +at finding themselves the centre of interest in a circle more +grand, more golden and more highly coloured than they could have +imagined possible, pulled out the padlock, the Necessaire, and +the tie-clip. 'But it's not tribute all the same,' Cyril +muttered. 'England doesn't pay tribute!' + +Pharaoh examined all the things with great interest when the +chief of the household had taken them up to him. 'Deliver them +to the Keeper of the Treasury,' he said to one near him. And to +the children he said-- + +'A small tribute, truly, but strange, and not without worth. And +the magic, O Rekh-mara?' + +'These unworthy sons of a conquered nation ...' began Rekh-mara. + +'Nothing of the kind!' Cyril whispered angrily. + +'... of a vile and conquered nation, can make fire to spring +from dry wood--in the sight of all.' + +'I should jolly well like to see them do it,' said Pharaoh, just +as the priest had done. + +So Cyril, without more ado, did it. + +'Do more magic,' said the King, with simple appreciation. + +'He cannot do any more magic,' said Anthea suddenly, and all eyes +were turned on her, 'because of the voice of the free people who +are shouting for bread and onions and beer and a long mid-day +rest. If the people had what they wanted, he could do more.' + +'A rude-spoken girl,' said Pharaoh. 'But give the dogs what they +want,' he said, without turning his head. 'Let them have their +rest and their extra rations. There are plenty of slaves to +work.' + +A richly-dressed official hurried out. + +'You will be the idol of the people,' Rekh-mara whispered +joyously; 'the Temple of Amen will not contain their offerings.' + +Cyril struck another match, and all the court was overwhelmed +with delight and wonder. And when Cyril took the candle from his +pocket and lighted it with the match, and then held the burning +candle up before the King the enthusiasm knew no bounds. + +'Oh, greatest of all, before whom sun and moon and stars bow +down,' said Rekh-mara insinuatingly, 'am I pardoned? Is my +innocence made plain?' + +'As plain as it ever will be, I daresay,' said Pharaoh shortly. +'Get along with you. You are pardoned. Go in peace.' The +priest went with lightning swiftness. + +'And what,' said the King suddenly, 'is it that moves in that +sack? + +Show me, oh strangers.' + +There was nothing for it but to show the Psammead. + +'Seize it,' said Pharaoh carelessly. 'A very curious monkey. It +will be a nice little novelty for my wild beast collection.' + +And instantly, the entreaties of the children availing as little +as the bites of the Psammead, though both bites and entreaties +were fervent, it was carried away from before their eyes. + +'Oh, DO be careful!' cried Anthea. 'At least keep it dry! Keep +it in its sacred house!' + +She held up the embroidered bag. + +'It's a magic creature,' cried Robert; 'it's simply priceless!' + +'You've no right to take it away,' cried Jane incautiously. +'It's a shame, a barefaced robbery, that's what it is!' + +There was an awful silence. Then Pharaoh spoke. + +'Take the sacred house of the beast from them,' he said, 'and +imprison all. Tonight after supper it may be our pleasure to see +more magic. Guard them well, and do not torture them--yet!' + +'Oh, dear!' sobbed Jane, as they were led away. 'I knew exactly +what it would be! Oh, I wish you hadn't!' + +'Shut up, silly,' said Cyril. 'You know you WOULD come to Egypt. +It was your own idea entirely. Shut up. It'll be all right.' + +'I thought we should play ball with queens,' sobbed Jane, 'and +have no end of larks! And now everything's going to be perfectly +horrid!' + +The room they were shut up in WAS a room, and not a dungeon, as +the elder ones had feared. That, as Anthea said, was one +comfort. There were paintings on the wall that at any other time +would have been most interesting. And a sort of low couch, and +chairs. When they were alone Jane breathed a sigh of relief. +'Now we can get home all right,' she said. + +'And leave the Psammead?' said Anthea reproachfully. + +'Wait a sec. I've got an idea,' said Cyril. He pondered for a +few moments. Then he began hammering on the heavy cedar door. +It opened, and a guard put in his head. + +'Stop that row,' he said sternly, 'or--' + +'Look here,' Cyril interrupted, 'it's very dull for you isn't +it?just doing nothing but guard us. Wouldn't you like to see +some magic? We're not too proud to do it for you. Wouldn't you +like to see it?' + +'I don't mind if I do,' said the guard. + +'Well then, you get us that monkey of ours that was taken away, +and we'll show you.' + +'How do I know you're not making game of me?' asked the soldier. +'Shouldn't wonder if you only wanted to get the creature so as to +set it on me. I daresay its teeth and claws are poisonous.' +'Well, look here,' said Robert. 'You see we've got nothing with +us? You just shut the door, and open it again in five minutes, +and we'll have got a magic--oh, I don't know--a magic flower in a +pot for you.' + +'If you can do that you can do anything,' said the soldier, and +he went out and barred the door. + +Then, of course, they held up the Amulet. They found the East by +holding it up, and turning slowly till the Amulet began to grow +big, walked home through it, and came back with a geranium in +full scarlet flower from the staircase window of the Fitzroy +Street house. + +'Well!' said the soldier when he came in. 'I really am--!' + +'We can do much more wonderful things than that--oh, ever so +much,' said Anthea persuasively, 'if we only have our monkey. +And here's twopence for yourself.' + +The soldier looked at the twopence. + +'What's this?' he said. + +Robert explained how much simpler it was to pay money for things +than to exchange them as the people were doing in the market. +Later on the soldier gave the coins to his captain, who, later +still, showed them to Pharaoh, who of course kept them and was +much struck with the idea. That was really how coins first came +to be used in Egypt. You will not believe this, I daresay, but +really, if you believe the rest of the story, I don't see why you +shouldn't believe this as well. + +'I say,' said Anthea, struck by a sudden thought, 'I suppose +it'll be all right about those workmen? The King won't go back +on what he said about them just because he's angry with us?' + +'Oh, no,' said the soldier, 'you see, he's rather afraid of +magic. He'll keep to his word right enough.' + +'Then THAT'S all right,' said Robert; and Anthea said softly and +coaxingly-- + +'Ah, DO get us the monkey, and then you'll see some lovely magic. +Do--there's a nice, kind soldier.' + +'I don't know where they've put your precious monkey, but if I +can get another chap to take on my duty here I'll see what I can +do,' he said grudgingly, and went out. + +'Do you mean,' said Robert, 'that we're going off without even +TRYING for the other half of the Amulet?' + +'I really think we'd better,' said Anthea tremulously. 'Of course +the other half of the Amulet's here somewhere or our half +wouldn't have brought us here. I do wish we could find it. It +is a pity we don't know any REAL magic. Then we could find out. +I do wonder where it is--exactly.' + +If they had only known it, something very like the other half of +the Amulet was very near them. It hung round the neck of +someone, and that someone was watching them through a chink, high +up in the wall, specially devised for watching people who were +imprisoned. But they did not know. + +There was nearly an hour of anxious waiting. They tried to take +an interest in the picture on the wall, a picture of harpers +playing very odd harps and women dancing at a feast. They +examined the painted plaster floor, and the chairs were of white +painted wood with coloured stripes at intervals. + +But the time went slowly, and everyone had time to think of how +Pharaoh had said, 'Don't torture them--YET.' + +'If the worst comes to the worst,' said Cyril, 'we must just +bunk, and leave the Psammead. I believe it can take care of +itself well enough. They won't kill it or hurt it when they find +it can speak and give wishes. They'll build it a temple, I +shouldn't wonder.' + +'I couldn't bear to go without it,' said Anthea, 'and Pharaoh +said "After supper", that won't be just yet. And the soldier WAS +curious. I'm sure we're all right for the present.' + +All the same, the sounds of the door being unbarred seemed one of +the prettiest sounds possible. + +'Suppose he hasn't got the Psammead?' whispered Jane. + +But that doubt was set at rest by the Psammead itself; for almost +before the door was open it sprang through the chink of it into +Anthea's arms, shivering and hunching up its fur. + +'Here's its fancy overcoat,' said the soldier, holding out the +bag, into which the Psammead immediately crept. + +'Now,' said Cyril, 'what would you like us to do? Anything you'd +like us to get for you?' + +'Any little trick you like,' said the soldier. 'If you can get a +strange flower blooming in an earthenware vase you can get +anything, I suppose,' he said. 'I just wish I'd got two men's +loads of jewels from the King's treasury. That's what I've +always wished for.' + +At the word 'WISH' the children knew that the Psammead would +attend to THAT bit of magic. It did, and the floor was littered +with a spreading heap of gold and precious stones. + +'Any other little trick?' asked Cyril loftily. 'Shall we become +invisible? Vanish?' + +'Yes, if you like,' said the soldier; 'but not through the door, +you don't.' + +He closed it carefully and set his broad Egyptian back against +it. + +'No! no!' cried a voice high up among the tops of the tall wooden +pillars that stood against the wall. There was a sound of +someone moving above. + +The soldier was as much surprised as anybody. + +'That's magic, if you like,' he said. + +And then Jane held up the Amulet, uttering the word of Power. At +the sound of it and at the sight of the Amulet growing into the +great arch the soldier fell flat on his face among the jewels +with a cry of awe and terror. + +The children went through the arch with a quickness born of long +practice. But Jane stayed in the middle of the arch and looked +back. + +The others, standing on the dining-room carpet in Fitzroy Street, +turned and saw her still in the arch. 'Someone's holding her,' +cried Cyril. 'We must go back.' + +But they pulled at Jane's hands just to see if she would come, +and, of course, she did come. + +Then, as usual, the arch was little again and there they all +were. + +'Oh, I do wish you hadn't!' Jane said crossly. "It WAS so +interesting. The priest had come in and he was kicking the +soldier, and telling him he'd done it now, and they must take the +jewels and flee for their lives.' + +'And did they?' + +'I don't know. You interfered,' said Jane ungratefully. 'I +SHOULD have liked to see the last of it.' + +As a matter of fact, none of them had seen the last of it--if by +'it' Jane meant the adventure of the Priest and the Soldier. + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +THE SORRY-PRESENT AND THE EXPELLED LITTLE BOY + +'Look here, said Cyril, sitting on the dining-table and swinging +his legs; 'I really have got it.' + +'Got what?' was the not unnatural rejoinder of the others. + +Cyril was making a boat with a penknife and a piece of wood, and +the girls were making warm frocks for their dolls, for the +weather was growing chilly. + +'Why, don't you see? It's really not any good our going into the +Past looking for that Amulet. The Past's as full of different +times as--as the sea is of sand. We're simply bound to hit upon +the wrong time. We might spend our lives looking for the Amulet +and never see a sight of it. Why, it's the end of September +already. It's like looking for a needle in--' + +'A bottle of hay--I know,' interrupted Robert; 'but if we don't +go on doing that, what ARE we to do?' + +'That's just it,' said Cyril in mysterious accents. 'Oh, +BOTHER!' + +Old Nurse had come in with the tray of knives, forks, and +glasses, and was getting the tablecloth and table-napkins out of +the chiffonier drawer. + +'It's always meal-times just when you come to anything +interesting.' + +'And a nice interesting handful YOU'D be, Master Cyril,' said old +Nurse, 'if I wasn't to bring your meals up to time. Don't you +begin grumbling now, fear you get something to grumble AT.' + +'I wasn't grumbling,' said Cyril quite untruly; 'but it does +always happen like that.' + +'You deserve to HAVE something happen,' said old Nurse. 'Slave, +slave, slave for you day and night, and never a word of thanks. +...' + +'Why, you do everything beautifully,' said Anthea. + +'It's the first time any of you's troubled to say so, anyhow,' +said Nurse shortly. + +'What's the use of SAYING?' inquired Robert. 'We EAT our meals +fast enough, and almost always two helps. THAT ought to show +you!' + +'Ah!' said old Nurse, going round the table and putting the +knives and forks in their places; 'you're a man all over, Master +Robert. There was my poor Green, all the years he lived with me +I never could get more out of him than "It's all right!" when I +asked him if he'd fancied his dinner. And yet, when he lay +a-dying, his last words to me was, "Maria, you was always a good +cook!"' She ended with a trembling voice. + +'And so you are,' cried Anthea, and she and Jane instantly hugged +her. + +When she had gone out of the room Anthea said-- + +'I know exactly how she feels. Now, look here! Let's do a +penance to show we're sorry we didn't think about telling her +before what nice cooking she does, and what a dear she is.' + +'Penances are silly,' said Robert. + +'Not if the penance is something to please someone else. I +didn't mean old peas and hair shirts and sleeping on the stones. +I mean we'll make her a sorry-present,' explained Anthea. 'Look +here! I vote Cyril doesn't tell us his idea until we've done +something for old Nurse. It's worse for us than him,' she added +hastily, 'because he knows what it is and we don't. Do you all +agree?' + +The others would have been ashamed not to agree, so they did. It +was not till quite near the end of dinner--mutton fritters and +blackberry and apple pie--that out of the earnest talk of the +four came an idea that pleased everybody and would, they hoped, +please Nurse. + +Cyril and Robert went out with the taste of apple still in their +mouths and the purple of blackberries on their lips--and, in the +case of Robert, on the wristband as well--and bought a big sheet +of cardboard at the stationers. Then at the plumber's shop, that +has tubes and pipes and taps and gas-fittings in the window, they +bought a pane of glass the same size as the cardboard. The man +cut it with a very interesting tool that had a bit of diamond at +the end, and he gave them, out of his own free generousness, a +large piece of putty and a small piece of glue. + +While they were out the girls had floated four photographs of the +four children off their cards in hot water. These were now stuck +in a row along the top of the cardboard. Cyril put the glue to +melt in a jampot, and put the jampot in a saucepan and saucepan +on the fire, while Robert painted a wreath of poppies round the +photographs. He painted rather well and very quickly, and +poppies are easy to do if you've once been shown how. Then +Anthea drew some printed letters and Jane coloured them. The +words were: + + 'With all our loves to shew + We like the thigs to eat.' + +And when the painting was dry they all signed their names at the +bottom and put the glass on, and glued brown paper round the edge +and over the back, and put two loops of tape to hang it up by. + +Of course everyone saw when too late that there were not enough +letters in 'things', so the missing 'n' was put in. It was +impossible, of course, to do the whole thing over again for just +one letter. + +'There!' said Anthea, placing it carefully, face up, under the +sofa. 'It'll be hours before the glue's dry. Now, Squirrel, +fire ahead!' + +'Well, then,' said Cyril in a great hurry, rubbing at his gluey +hands with his pocket handkerchief. 'What I mean to say is +this.' + +There was a long pause. + +'Well,' said Robert at last, 'WHAT is it that you mean to say?' + +'It's like this,' said Cyril, and again stopped short. + +'Like WHAT?' asked Jane. + +'How can I tell you if you will all keep on interrupting?' said +Cyril sharply. + +So no one said any more, and with wrinkled frowns he arranged his +ideas. + +'Look here,' he said, 'what I really mean is--we can remember now +what we did when we went to look for the Amulet. And if we'd +found it we should remember that too.' + +'Rather!' said Robert. 'Only, you see we haven't.' + +'But in the future we shall have.' + +'Shall we, though?' said Jane. + +'Yes--unless we've been made fools of by the Psammead. So then, +where we want to go to is where we shall remember about where we +did find it.' + +'I see,' said Robert, but he didn't. + +'_I_ don't,' said Anthea, who did, very nearly. 'Say it again, +Squirrel, and very slowly.' + +'If,' said Cyril, very slowly indeed, 'we go into the +future--after we've found the Amulet--' + +'But we've got to find it first,' said Jane. + +'Hush!' said Anthea. + +'There will be a future,' said Cyril, driven to greater clearness +by the blank faces of the other three, 'there will be a time +AFTER we've found it. Let's go into THAT time--and then we shall +remember HOW we found it. And then we can go back and do the +finding really.' + +'I see,' said Robert, and this time he did, and I hope YOU do. + +'Yes,' said Anthea. 'Oh, Squirrel, how clever of you!' + +'But will the Amulet work both ways?' inquired Robert. + +'It ought to,' said Cyril, 'if time's only a thingummy of +whatsitsname. Anyway we might try.' + +'Let's put on our best things, then,' urged Jane. 'You know what +people say about progress and the world growing better and +brighter. I expect people will be awfully smart in the future.' + +'All right,' said Anthea, 'we should have to wash anyway, I'm all +thick with glue.' + +When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up. + +'We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we've +found it,' said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They +walked through the big arch of the charm straight into the +British Museum. + +They knew it at once, and there, right in front of them, under a +glass case, was the Amulet--their own half of it, as well as the +other half they had never been able to find--and the two were +joined by a pin of red stone that formed a hinge. + +'Oh, glorious!' cried Robert. 'Here it is!' + +'Yes,' said Cyril, very gloomily, 'here it is. But we can't get +it out.' + +'No,' said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of +Babylon had found it to get anything out of the glass cases in +the Museum--except by Psammead magic, and then she hadn't been +able to take anything away with her; 'no--but we remember where +we got it, and we can--' + +'Oh, DO we?' interrupted Cyril bitterly, 'do YOU remember where +we got it?' + +'No,' said Robert, 'I don't exactly, now I come to think of it.' + +Nor did any of the others! + +'But WHY can't we?' said Jane. + +'Oh, _I_ don't know,' Cyril's tone was impatient, 'some silly old +enchanted rule I suppose. I wish people would teach you magic at +school like they do sums--or instead of. It would be some use +having an Amulet then.' + +'I wonder how far we are in the future,' said Anthea; the Museum +looks just the same, only lighter and brighter, somehow.' + +'Let's go back and try the Past again,' said Robert. + +'Perhaps the Museum people could tell us how we got it,' said +Anthea with sudden hope. There was no one in the room, but in +the next gallery, where the Assyrian things are and still were, +they found a kind, stout man in a loose, blue gown, and +stockinged legs. + +'Oh, they've got a new uniform, how pretty!' said Jane. + +When they asked him their question he showed them a label on the +case. It said, 'From the collection of--.' A name followed, and +it was the name of the learned gentleman who, among themselves, +and to his face when he had been with them at the other side of +the Amulet, they had called Jimmy. + +'THAT'S not much good,' said Cyril, 'thank you.' + +'How is it you're not at school?' asked the kind man in blue. +'Not expelled for long I hope?' + +'We're not expelled at all,' said Cyril rather warmly. + +'Well, I shouldn't do it again, if I were you,' said the man, and +they could see he did not believe them. There is no company so +little pleasing as that of people who do not believe you. + +'Thank you for showing us the label,' said Cyril. And they came +away. + +As they came through the doors of the Museum they blinked at the +sudden glory of sunlight and blue sky. The houses opposite the +Museum were gone. Instead there was a big garden, with trees and +flowers and smooth green lawns, and not a single notice to tell +you not to walk on the grass and not to destroy the trees and +shrubs and not to pick the flowers. There were comfortable seats +all about, and arbours covered with roses, and long, trellised +walks, also rose-covered. Whispering, splashing fountains fell +into full white marble basins, white statues gleamed among the +leaves, and the pigeons that swept about among the branches or +pecked on the smooth, soft gravel were not black and tumbled like +the Museum pigeons are now, but bright and clean and sleek as +birds of new silver. A good many people were sitting on the +seats, and on the grass babies were rolling and kicking and +playing--with very little on indeed. Men, as well as women, +seemed to be in charge of the babies and were playing with them. + + +'It's like a lovely picture,' said Anthea, and it was. For the +people's clothes were of bright, soft colours and all beautifully +and very simply made. No one seemed to have any hats or bonnets, +but there were a great many Japanese-looking sunshades. And +among the trees were hung lamps of coloured glass. + +'I expect they light those in the evening,' said Jane. 'I do +wish we lived in the future!' + +They walked down the path, and as they went the people on the +benches looked at the four children very curiously, but not +rudely or unkindly. The children, in their turn, looked--I hope +they did not stare--at the faces of these people in the beautiful +soft clothes. Those faces were worth looking at. Not that they +were all handsome, though even in the matter of handsomeness they +had the advantage of any set of people the children had ever +seen. But it was the expression of their faces that made them +worth looking at. The children could not tell at first what it +was. + +'I know,' said Anthea suddenly. 'They're not worried; that's +what it is.' + +And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a +hurry, no one seemed to be anxious, or fretted, and though some +did seem to be sad, not a single one looked worried. + +But though the people looked kind everyone looked so interested +in the children that they began to feel a little shy and turned +out of the big main path into a narrow little one that wound +among trees and shrubs and mossy, dripping springs. + +It was here, in a deep, shadowed cleft between tall cypresses, +that they found the expelled little boy. He was lying face +downward on the mossy turf, and the peculiar shaking of his +shoulders was a thing they had seen, more than once, in each +other. So Anthea kneeled down by him and said-- + +'What's the matter?' + +'I'm expelled from school,' said the boy between his sobs. + +This was serious. People are not expelled for light offences. + +'Do you mind telling us what you'd done?' + +'I--I tore up a sheet of paper and threw it about in the +playground,' said the child, in the tone of one confessing an +unutterable baseness. 'You won't talk to me any more now you +know that,' he added without looking up. + +'Was that all?' asked Anthea. + +'It's about enough,' said the child; 'and I'm expelled for the +whole day!' + +'I don't quite understand,' said Anthea, gently. The boy lifted +his face, rolled over, and sat up . + +'Why, whoever on earth are you?' he said. + +'We're strangers from a far country,' said Anthea. 'In our +country it's not a crime to leave a bit of paper about.' + +'It is here,' said the child. 'If grown-ups do it they're fined. +When we do it we're expelled for the whole day.' + +'Well, but,' said Robert, 'that just means a day' s holiday.' + +'You MUST come from a long way off,' said the little boy. 'A +holiday's when you all have play and treats and jolliness, all of +you together. On your expelled days no one'll speak to you. +Everyone sees you're an Expelleder or you'd be in school.' + +'Suppose you were ill?' + +'Nobody is--hardly. If they are, of course they wear the badge, +and everyone is kind to you. I know a boy that stole his +sister's illness badge and wore it when he was expelled for a +day. HE got expelled for a week for that. It must be awful not +to go to school for a week.' + +'Do you LIKE school, then?' asked Robert incredulously. + +'Of course I do. It's the loveliest place there is. I chose +railways for my special subject this year, there are such +splendid models and things, and now I shall be all behind because +of that torn-up paper.' + +'You choose your own subject?' asked Cyril. + +'Yes, of course. Where DID you come from? Don't you know +ANYTHING?' + +'No,' said Jane definitely; 'so you'd better tell us.' + +'Well, on Midsummer Day school breaks up and everything's +decorated with flowers, and you choose your special subject for +next year. Of course you have to stick to it for a year at +least. Then there are all your other subjects, of course, +reading, and painting, and the rules of Citizenship.' + +'Good gracious!' said Anthea. + +'Look here,' said the child, jumping up, 'it's nearly four. The +expelledness only lasts till then. Come home with me. Mother +will tell you all about everything.' + +'Will your mother like you taking home strange children?' asked +Anthea. + +'I don't understand,' said the child, settling his leather belt +over his honey-coloured smock and stepping out with hard little +bare feet. 'Come on.' + +So they went. + +The streets were wide and hard and very clean. There were no +horses, but a sort of motor carriage that made no noise. The +Thames flowed between green banks, and there were trees at the +edge, and people sat under them, fishing, for the stream was +clear as crystal. Everywhere there were green trees and there +was no smoke. The houses were set in what seemed like one green +garden. + +The little boy brought them to a house, and at the window was a +good, bright mother-face. The little boy rushed in, and through +the window they could see him hugging his mother, then his eager +lips moving and his quick hands pointing. + +A lady in soft green clothes came out, spoke kindly to them, and +took them into the oddest house they had ever seen. It was very +bare, there were no ornaments, and yet every single thing was +beautiful, from the dresser with its rows of bright china, to the +thick squares of Eastern-looking carpet on the floors. I can't +describe that house; I haven't the time. And I haven't heart +either, when I think how different it was from our houses. The +lady took them all over it. The oddest thing of all was the big +room in the middle. It had padded walls and a soft, thick +carpet, and all the chairs and tables were padded. There wasn't +a single thing in it that anyone could hurt itself with. + +'What ever's this for?--lunatics?' asked Cyril. + +The lady looked very shocked. + +'No! It's for the children, of course,' she said. 'Don't tell +me that in your country there are no children's rooms.' + +'There are nurseries,' said Anthea doubtfully, 'but the +furniture's all cornery and hard, like other rooms.' + +'How shocking!' said the lady;'you must be VERY much behind the +times in your country! Why, the children are more than half of +the people; it's not much to have one room where they can have a +good time and not hurt themselves.' + +'But there's no fireplace,' said Anthea. + +'Hot-air pipes, of course,' said the lady. 'Why, how could you +have a fire in a nursery? A child might get burned.' + +'In our country,' said Robert suddenly, 'more than 3,000 children +are burned to death every year. Father told me,' he added, as if +apologizing for this piece of information, 'once when I'd been +playing with fire.' + +The lady turned quite pale. + +'What a frightful place you must live in!' she said. 'What's all +the furniture padded for?' Anthea asked, hastily turning the +subject. + +'Why, you couldn't have little tots of two or three running about +in rooms where the things were hard and sharp! They might hurt +themselves.' + +Robert fingered the scar on his forehead where he had hit it +against the nursery fender when he was little. + +'But does everyone have rooms like this, poor people and all?' +asked Anthea. + +'There's a room like this wherever there's a child, of course,' +said the lady. 'How refreshingly ignorant you are!--no, I don't +mean ignorant, my dear. Of course, you're awfully well up in +ancient History. But I see you haven't done your Duties of +Citizenship Course yet.' + +'But beggars, and people like that?' persisted Anthea 'and tramps +and people who haven't any homes?' + +'People who haven't any homes?' repeated the lady. 'I really +DON'T understand what you're talking about.' + +'It's all different in our country,' said Cyril carefully; and I +have read it used to be different in London. Usedn't people to +have no homes and beg because they were hungry? And wasn't +London very black and dirty once upon a time? And the Thames all +muddy and filthy? And narrow streets, and--' + +'You must have been reading very old-fashioned books,' said the +lady. 'Why, all that was in the dark ages! My husband can tell +you more about it than I can. He took Ancient History as one of +his special subjects.' + +'I haven't seen any working people,' said Anthea. + +'Why, we're all working people,' said the lady; 'at least my +husband's a carpenter.' + +'Good gracious!' said Anthea; 'but you're a lady!' + +'Ah,' said the lady, 'that quaint old word! Well, my husband +WILL enjoy a talk with you. In the dark ages everyone was +allowed to have a smoky chimney, and those nasty horses all over +the streets, and all sorts of rubbish thrown into the Thames. +And, of course, the sufferings of the people will hardly bear +thinking of. It's very learned of you to know it all. Did you +make Ancient History your special subject?' + +'Not exactly,' said Cyril, rather uneasily. 'What is the Duties +of Citizenship Course about?' + +'Don't you REALLY know? Aren't you pretending--just for fun? +Really not? Well, that course teaches you how to be a good +citizen, what you must do and what you mayn't do, so as to do +your full share of the work of making your town a beautiful and +happy place for people to live in. There's a quite simple little +thing they teach the tiny children. How does it go ...? + + 'I must not steal and I must learn, + Nothing is mine that I do not earn. + I must try in work and play + To make things beautiful every day. + I must be kind to everyone, + And never let cruel things be done. + I must be brave, and I must try + When I am hurt never to cry, + And always laugh as much as I can, + And be glad that I'm going to be a man + To work for my living and help the rest + And never do less than my very best.' + +'That's very easy,' said Jane. '_I_ could remember that.' + +'That's only the very beginning, of course,' said the lady; +'there are heaps more rhymes. There's the one beginning-- + + 'I must not litter the beautiful street + With bits of paper or things to eat; + I must not pick the public flowers, + They are not MINE, but they are OURS.' + +'And "things to eat" reminds me--are you hungry? Wells, run and +get a tray of nice things.' + +'Why do you call him "Wells"?' asked Robert, as the boy ran off. + +'It's after the great reformer--surely you've heard of HIM? He +lived in the dark ages, and he saw that what you ought to do is +to find out what you want and then try to get it. Up to then +people had always tried to tinker up what they'd got. We've got +a great many of the things he thought of. Then "Wells" means +springs of clear water. It's a nice name, don't you think?' + +Here Wells returned with strawberries and cakes and lemonade on a +tray, and everybody ate and enjoyed. + +'Now, Wells,' said the lady, 'run off or you'll be late and not +meet your Daddy.' + +Wells kissed her, waved to the others, and went. + +'Look here,' said Anthea suddenly, 'would you like to come to OUR +country, and see what it's like? It wouldn't take you a minute.' + +The lady laughed. But Jane held up the charm and said the word. + +'What a splendid conjuring trick!' cried the lady, enchanted with +the beautiful, growing arch. + +'Go through,' said Anthea. + +The lady went, laughing. But she did not laugh when she found +herself, suddenly, in the dining-room at Fitzroy Street. + +'Oh, what a HORRIBLE trick!' she cried. 'What a hateful, dark, +ugly place!' + +She ran to the window and looked out. The sky was grey, the +street was foggy, a dismal organ-grinder was standing opposite +the door, a beggar and a man who sold matches were quarrelling at +the edge of the pavement on whose greasy black surface people +hurried along, hastening to get to the shelter of their houses. + +'Oh, look at their faces, their horrible faces!' she cried. +'What's the matter with them all?' + +'They're poor people, that's all,' said Robert. + +'But it's NOT all! They're ill, they're unhappy, they're wicked! +Oh, do stop it, there's dear children. It's very, very clever. +Some sort of magic-lantern trick, I suppose, like I've read of. +But DO stop it. Oh! their poor, tired, miserable, wicked faces!' + +The tears were in her eyes. Anthea signed to Jane. The arch +grew, they spoke the words, and pushed the lady through it into +her own time and place, where London is clean and beautiful, and +the Thames runs clear and bright, and the green trees grow, and +no one is afraid, or anxious, or in a hurry. There was a +silence. Then-- + +'I'm glad we went,' said Anthea, with a deep breath. + +'I'll never throw paper about again as long as I live,' said +Robert. + +'Mother always told us not to,' said Jane. + +'I would like to take up the Duties of Citizenship for a special +subject,' said Cyril. 'I wonder if Father could put me through +it. I shall ask him when he comes home.' + +'If we'd found the Amulet, Father could be home NOW,' said +Anthea, 'and Mother and The Lamb.' + +'Let's go into the future AGAIN,' suggested Jane brightly. +'Perhaps we could remember if it wasn't such an awful way off.' + +So they did. This time they said, 'The future, where the Amulet +is, not so far away.' + +And they went through the familiar arch into a large, light room +with three windows. Facing them was the familiar mummy-case. +And at a table by the window sat the learned gentleman. They +knew him at once, though his hair was white. He was one of the +faces that do not change with age. In his hand was the +Amulet--complete and perfect. + +He rubbed his other hand across his forehead in the way they were +so used to. + +'Dreams, dreams!' he said; 'old age is full of them!' + +'You've been in dreams with us before now,' said Robert, 'don't +you remember?' + +'I do, indeed,' said he. The room had many more books than the +Fitzroy Street room, and far more curious and wonderful Assyrian +and Egyptian objects. 'The most wonderful dreams I ever had had +you in them.' + +'Where,' asked Cyril, 'did you get that thing in your hand?' + +'If you weren't just a dream,' he answered, smiling, you'd +remember that you gave it to me.' + +'But where did we get it?' Cyril asked eagerly. + +'Ah, you never would tell me that,' he said, 'You always had your +little mysteries. You dear children! What a difference you made +to that old Bloomsbury house! I wish I could dream you oftener. +Now you're grown up you're not like you used to be.' + +'Grown up?' said Anthea. + +The learned gentleman pointed to a frame with four photographs in +it. + +'There you are,' he said. + +The children saw four grown-up people's portraits--two ladies, +two gentlemen--and looked on them with loathing. + +'Shall we grow up like THAT?' whispered Jane. 'How perfectly +horrid!' + +'If we're ever like that, we sha'n't know it's horrid, I expect,' +Anthea with some insight whispered back. 'You see, you get used +to yourself while you're changing. It's--it's being so sudden +makes it seem so frightful now.' + +The learned gentleman was looking at them with wistful kindness. +'Don't let me undream you just yet,' he said. There was a pause. + +'Do you remember WHEN we gave you that Amulet?' Cyril asked +suddenly. + +'You know, or you would if you weren't a dream, that it was on +the 3rd December, 1905. I shall never forget THAT day.' + +'Thank you,' said Cyril, earnestly; 'oh, thank you very much.' + +'You've got a new room,' said Anthea, looking out of the window, +'and what a lovely garden!' + +'Yes,' said he, 'I'm too old now to care even about being near +the Museum. This is a beautiful place. Do you know--I can +hardly believe you're just a dream, you do look so exactly real. +Do you know ...' his voice dropped, 'I can say it to YOU, +though, of course, if I said it to anyone that wasn't a dream +they'd call me mad; there was something about that Amulet you +gave me--something very mysterious.' + +'There was that,' said Robert. + +'Ah, I don't mean your pretty little childish mysteries about +where you got it. But about the thing itself. First, the +wonderful dreams I used to have, after you'd shown me the first +half of it! Why, my book on Atlantis, that I did, was the +beginning of my fame and my fortune, too. And I got it all out +of a dream! And then, "Britain at the Time of the Roman +Invasion"--that was only a pamphlet, but it explained a lot of +things people hadn't understood.' + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'it would.' + +'That was the beginning. But after you'd given me the whole of +the Amulet--ah, it was generous of you!--then, somehow, I didn't +need to theorize, I seemed to KNOW about the old Egyptian +civilization. And they can't upset my theories'--he rubbed his +thin hands and laughed triumphantly--'they can't, though they've +tried. Theories, they call them, but they're more like--I don't +know--more like memories. I KNOW I'm right about the secret +rites of the Temple of Amen.' + +'I'm so glad you're rich,' said Anthea. 'You weren't, you know, +at Fitzroy Street.' + +'Indeed I wasn't,' said he, 'but I am now. This beautiful house +and this lovely garden--I dig in it sometimes; you remember, you +used to tell me to take more exercise? Well, I feel I owe it all +to you--and the Amulet.' + +'I'm so glad,' said Anthea, and kissed him. He started. + +'THAT didn't feel like a dream,' he said, and his voice trembled. + +'It isn't exactly a dream,' said Anthea softly, 'it's all part of +the Amulet--it's a sort of extra special, real dream, dear +Jimmy.' + +'Ah,' said he, 'when you call me that, I know I'm dreaming. My +little sister--I dream of her sometimes. But it's not real like +this. Do you remember the day I dreamed you brought me the +Babylonish ring?' + +'We remember it all,' said Robert. 'Did you leave Fitzroy Street +because you were too rich for it?' + +'Oh, no!' he said reproachfully. 'You know I should never have +done such a thing as that. Of course, I left when your old Nurse +died and--what's the matter!' + +'Old Nurse DEAD?' said Anthea. 'Oh, NO!' + +'Yes, yes, it's the common lot. It's a long time ago now.' + +Jane held up the Amulet in a hand that twittered. + +'Come!' she cried, 'oh, come home! She may be dead before we get +there, and then we can't give it to her. Oh, come!' + +'Ah, don't let the dream end now!' pleaded the learned gentleman. + +'It must,' said Anthea firmly, and kissed him again. + +'When it comes to people dying,' said Robert, 'good-bye! I'm so +glad you're rich and famous and happy.' + +'DO come!' cried Jane, stamping in her agony of impatience. And +they went. Old Nurse brought in tea almost as soon as they were +back in Fitzroy Street. As she came in with the tray, the girls +rushed at her and nearly upset her and it. + +'Don't die!' cried Jane, 'oh, don't!' and Anthea cried, 'Dear, +ducky, darling old Nurse, don't die!' + +'Lord, love you!' said Nurse, 'I'm not agoin' to die yet a while, +please Heaven! Whatever on earth's the matter with the chicks?' + +'Nothing. Only don't!' + +She put the tray down and hugged the girls in turn. The boys +thumped her on the back with heartfelt affection. + +'I'm as well as ever I was in my life,' she said. 'What nonsense +about dying! You've been a sitting too long in the dusk, that's +what it is. Regular blind man's holiday. Leave go of me, while +I light the gas.' + +The yellow light illuminated four pale faces. 'We do love you +so,' Anthea went on, 'and we've made you a picture to show you +how we love you. Get it out, Squirrel.' + +The glazed testimonial was dragged out from under the sofa and +displayed. + +'The glue's not dry yet,' said Cyril, 'look out!' + +'What a beauty!' cried old Nurse. 'Well, I never! And your +pictures and the beautiful writing and all. Well, I always did +say your hearts was in the right place, if a bit careless at +times. Well! I never did! I don't know as I was ever pleased +better in my life.' + +She hugged them all, one after the other. And the boys did not +mind it, somehow, that day. + + +'How is it we can remember all about the future, NOW?' Anthea +woke the Psammead with laborious gentleness to put the question. +'How is it we can remember what we saw in the future, and yet, +when we WERE in the future, we could not remember the bit of the +future that was past then, the time of finding the Amulet?' + +'Why, what a silly question!' said the Psammead, 'of course you +cannot remember what hasn't happened yet.' + +'But the FUTURE hasn't happened yet,' Anthea persisted, 'and we +remember that all right.' + +'Oh, that isn't what's happened, my good child,' said the +Psammead, rather crossly, 'that's prophetic vision. And you +remember dreams, don't you? So why not visions? You never do +seem to understand the simplest thing.' + +It went to sand again at once. + +Anthea crept down in her nightgown to give one last kiss to old +Nurse, and one last look at the beautiful testimonial hanging, by +its tapes, its glue now firmly set, in glazed glory on the wall +of the kitchen. + +'Good-night, bless your loving heart,' said old Nurse, 'if only +you don't catch your deather-cold!' + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +THE SHIPWRECK ON THE TIN ISLANDS + +'Blue and red,' said Jane softly, 'make purple.' + +'Not always they don't,' said Cyril, 'it has to be crimson lake +and Prussian blue. If you mix Vermilion and Indigo you get the +most loathsome slate colour.' + +'Sepia's the nastiest colour in the box, I think,' said Jane, +sucking her brush. + +They were all painting. Nurse in the flush of grateful emotion, +excited by Robert's border of poppies, had presented each of the +four with a shilling paint-box, and had supplemented the gift +with a pile of old copies of the Illustrated London News. + +'Sepia,' said Cyril instructively, 'is made out of beastly +cuttlefish.' + +'Purple's made out of a fish, as well as out of red and blue,' +said Robert. 'Tyrian purple was, I know.' + +'Out of lobsters?' said Jane dreamily. 'They're red when they're +boiled, and blue when they aren't. If you mixed live and dead +lobsters you'd get Tyrian purple.' + +'_I_ shouldn't like to mix anything with a live lobster,' said +Anthea, shuddering. + +'Well, there aren't any other red and blue fish,' said Jane; +'you'd have to.' + +'I'd rather not have the purple,' said Anthea. + +'The Tyrian purple wasn't that colour when it came out of the +fish, nor yet afterwards, it wasn't,' said Robert; 'it was +scarlet really, and Roman Emperors wore it. And it wasn't any +nice colour while the fish had it. It was a yellowish-white +liquid of a creamy consistency.' + +'How do you know?' asked Cyril. + +'I read it,' said Robert, with the meek pride of superior +knowledge. + +'Where?' asked Cyril. + +'In print,' said Robert, still more proudly meek. + +'You think everything's true if it's printed,' said Cyril, +naturally annoyed, 'but it isn't. Father said so. Quite a lot +of lies get printed, especially in newspapers.' + +'You see, as it happens,' said Robert, in what was really a +rather annoying tone, 'it wasn't a newspaper, it was in a book.' + +'How sweet Chinese white is!' said Jane, dreamily sucking her +brush again. + +'I don't believe it,' said Cyril to Robert. + +'Have a suck yourself,' suggested Robert. + +'I don't mean about the Chinese white. I mean about the cream +fish turning purple and--" + +'Oh!' cried Anthea, jumping up very quickly, 'I'm tired of +painting. Let's go somewhere by Amulet. I say let's let IT +choose.' + +Cyril and Robert agreed that this was an idea. Jane consented to +stop painting because, as she said, Chinese white, though +certainly sweet, gives you a queer feeling in the back of the +throat if you paint with it too long. + +The Amulet was held up. 'Take us somewhere,' said Jane, +'anywhere you like in the Past--but somewhere where you are.' +Then she said the word. + +Next moment everyone felt a queer rocking and swaying--something +like what you feel when you go out in a fishing boat. And that +was not wonderful, when you come to think of it, for it was in a +boat that they found themselves. A queer boat, with high +bulwarks pierced with holes for oars to go through. There was a +high seat for the steersman, and the prow was shaped like the +head of some great animal with big, staring eyes. The boat rode +at anchor in a bay, and the bay was very smooth. The crew were +dark, wiry fellows with black beards and hair. They had no +clothes except a tunic from waist to knee, and round caps with +knobs on the top. They were very busy, and what they were doing +was so interesting to the children that at first they did not +even wonder where the Amulet had brought them. And the crew +seemed too busy to notice the children. They were fastening rush +baskets to a long rope with a great piece of cork at the end, and +in each basket they put mussels or little frogs. Then they cast +out the rope, the baskets sank, but the cork floated. And all +about on the blue water were other boats and all the crews of all +the boats were busy with ropes and baskets and frogs and mussels. + +'Whatever are you doing?' Jane suddenly asked a man who had +rather more clothes than the others, and seemed to be a sort of +captain or overseer. He started and stared at her, but he had +seen too many strange lands to be very much surprised at these +queerly-dressed stowaways. + +'Setting lines for the dye shell-fish,' he said shortly. 'How +did you get here?' + +'A sort of magic,' said Robert carelessly. The Captain fingered +an Amulet that hung round his neck. + +'What is this place?' asked Cyril. + +'Tyre, of course,' said the man. Then he drew back and spoke in +a low voice to one of the sailors. + +'Now we shall know about your precious cream-jug fish,' said +Cyril. + +'But we never SAID come to Tyre,' said Jane. + +'The Amulet heard us talking, I expect. I think it's MOST +obliging of it,' said Anthea. + +'And the Amulet's here too,' said Robert. 'We ought to be able +to find it in a little ship like this. I wonder which of them's +got it.' + +'Oh--look, look!' cried Anthea suddenly. On the bare breast of +one of the sailors gleamed something red. It was the exact +counterpart of their precious half-Amulet. + +A silence, full of emotion, was broken by Jane. + +'Then we've found it!' she said. 'Oh do let's take it and go +home!' + +'Easy to say "take it",' said Cyril; 'he looks very strong.' + +He did--yet not so strong as the other sailors. + +'It's odd,' said Anthea musingly, 'I do believe I've seen that +man somewhere before.' + +'He's rather like our learned gentleman,' said Robert, 'but I'll +tell you who he's much more like--' At that moment that sailor +looked up. His eyes met Robert's--and Robert and the others had +no longer any doubt as to where they had seen him before. It was +Rekh-mara, the priest who had led them to the palace of +Pharaoh--and whom Jane had looked back at through the arch, when +he was counselling Pharaoh's guard to take the jewels and fly for +his life. + +Nobody was quite pleased, and nobody quite knew why. + +Jane voiced the feelings of all when she said, fingering THEIR +Amulet through the folds of her frock, 'We can go back in a +minute if anything nasty happens.' + +For the moment nothing worse happened than an offer of food--figs +and cucumbers it was, and very pleasant. + +'I see,' said the Captain, 'that you are from a far country. +Since you have honoured my boat by appearing on it, you must stay +here till morning. Then I will lead you to one of our great +ones. He loves strangers from far lands.' + +'Let's go home,' Jane whispered, 'all the frogs are drowning NOW. +I think the people here are cruel.' + +But the boys wanted to stay and see the lines taken up in the +morning. + +'It's just like eel-pots and lobster-pots,' said Cyril, 'the +baskets only open from outside--I vote we stay.' + +So they stayed. + +'That's Tyre over there,' said the Captain, who was evidently +trying to be civil. He pointed to a great island rock, that rose +steeply from the sea, crowned with huge walls and towers. There +was another city on the mainland. + +'That's part of Tyre, too,' said the Captain; 'it's where the +great merchants have their pleasure-houses and gardens and +farms.' + +'Look, look!' Cyril cried suddenly; 'what a lovely little ship!' + +A ship in full sail was passing swiftly through the fishing +fleet. The Captain's face changed. He frowned, and his eyes +blazed with fury. + +'Insolent young barbarian!' he cried. 'Do you call the ships of +Tyre LITTLE? None greater sail the seas. That ship has been on +a three years' voyage. She is known in all the great trading +ports from here to the Tin Islands. She comes back rich and +glorious. Her very anchor is of silver.' + +'I'm sure we beg your pardon,' said Anthea hastily. 'In our +country we say "little" for a pet name. Your wife might call you +her dear little husband, you know.' + +'I should like to catch her at it,' growled the Captain, but he +stopped scowling. + +'It's a rich trade,' he went on. 'For cloth ONCE dipped, +second-best glass, and the rough images our young artists carve +for practice, the barbarian King in Tessos lets us work the +silver mines. We get so much silver there that we leave them our +iron anchors and come back with silver ones.' + +'How splendid!' said Robert. 'Do go on. What's cloth once +dipped?' + +'You MUST be barbarians from the outer darkness,' said the +Captain scornfully. 'All wealthy nations know that our finest +stuffs are twice dyed--dibaptha. They're only for the robes of +kings and priests and princes.' + +'What do the rich merchants wear,' asked Jane, with interest, 'in +the pleasure-houses?' + +'They wear the dibaptha. OUR merchants ARE princes,' scowled the +skipper. + +'Oh, don't be cross, we do so like hearing about things. We want +to know ALL about the dyeing,' said Anthea cordially. + +'Oh, you do, do you?' growled the man. 'So that's what you're +here for? Well, you won't get the secrets of the dye trade out +of ME.' + +He went away, and everyone felt snubbed and uncomfortable. And +all the time the long, narrow eyes of the Egyptian were watching, +watching. They felt as though he was watching them through the +darkness, when they lay down to sleep on a pile of cloaks. + +Next morning the baskets were drawn up full of what looked like +whelk shells. + +The children were rather in the way, but they made themselves as +small as they could. While the skipper was at the other end of +the boat they did ask one question of a sailor, whose face was a +little less unkind than the others. + +'Yes,' he answered, 'this is the dye-fish. It's a sort of +murex--and there's another kind that they catch at Sidon and +then, of course, there's the kind that's used for the dibaptha. +But that's quite different. It's--' + +'Hold your tongue!' shouted the skipper. And the man held it. + +The laden boat was rowed slowly round the end of the island, and +was made fast in one of the two great harbours that lay inside a +long breakwater. The harbour was full of all sorts of ships, so +that Cyril and Robert enjoyed themselves much more than their +sisters. The breakwater and the quays were heaped with bales and +baskets, and crowded with slaves and sailors. Farther along some +men were practising diving. + +'That's jolly good,' said Robert, as a naked brown body cleft the +water. + +'I should think so,' said the skipper. 'The pearl-divers of +Persia are not more skilful. Why, we've got a fresh-water spring +that comes out at the bottom of the sea. Our divers dive down +and bring up the fresh water in skin bottles! Can your barbarian +divers do as much?' + +'I suppose not,' said Robert, and put away a wild desire to +explain to the Captain the English system of waterworks, pipes, +taps, and the intricacies of the plumbers' trade. + +As they neared the quay the skipper made a hasty toilet. He did +his hair, combed his beard, put on a garment like a jersey with +short sleeves, an embroidered belt, a necklace of beads, and a +big signet ring. + +'Now,' said he, 'I'm fit to be seen. Come along?' + +'Where to?' said Jane cautiously. + +'To Pheles, the great sea-captain, said the skipper, 'the man I +told you of, who loves barbarians.' + +Then Rekh-mara came forward, and, for the first time, spoke. + +'I have known these children in another land,' he said. 'You +know my powers of magic. It was my magic that brought these +barbarians to your boat. And you know how they will profit you. +I read your thoughts. Let me come with you and see the end of +them, and then I will work the spell I promised you in return for +the little experience you have so kindly given me on your boat.' + +The skipper looked at the Egyptian with some disfavour. + +'So it was YOUR doing,' he said. 'I might have guessed it. +Well, come on.' + +So he came, and the girls wished he hadn't. But Robert +whispered-- + +'Nonsense--as long as he's with us we've got some chance of the +Amulet. We can always fly if anything goes wrong.' + +The morning was so fresh and bright; their breakfast had been so +good and so unusual; they had actually seen the Amulet round the +Egyptian's neck. One or two, or all these things, suddenly +raised the children's spirits. They went off quite cheerfully +through the city gate--it was not arched, but roofed over with a +great flat stone--and so through the street, which smelt horribly +of fish and garlic and a thousand other things even less +agreeable. But far worse than the street scents was the scent of +the factory, where the skipper called in to sell his night's +catch. I wish I could tell you all about that factory, but I +haven't time, and perhaps after all you aren't interested in +dyeing works. I will only mention that Robert was triumphantly +proved to be right. The dye WAS a yellowish-white liquid of a +creamy consistency, and it smelt more strongly of garlic than +garlic itself does. + +While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works +the Egyptian came close to the children, and said, suddenly and +softly-- + +'Trust me.' + +'I wish we could,' said Anthea. + +'You feel,' said the Egyptian, 'that I want your Amulet. That +makes you distrust me.' + +'Yes,' said Cyril bluntly. + +'But you also, you want my Amulet, and I am trusting you.' + +'There's something in that,' said Robert. + +'We have the two halves of the Amulet,' said the Priest, 'but not +yet the pin that joined them. Our only chance of getting that is +to remain together. Once part these two halves and they may +never be found in the same time and place. Be wise. Our +interests are the same.' + +Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him +the dye-master. His hair and beard were curled like the men's in +Babylon, and he was dressed like the skipper, but with added +grandeur of gold and embroidery. He had necklaces of beads and +silver, and a glass amulet with a man's face, very like his own, +set between two bull's heads, as well as gold and silver +bracelets and armlets. He looked keenly at the children. Then +he said-- + +'My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He's at his +garden house--unless he's hunting wild boar in the marshes. He +gets frightfully bored on shore.' + +'Ah,' said the skipper, 'he's a true-born Phoenician. "Tyre, +Tyre for ever! Oh, Tyre rules the waves!" as the old song says. +I'll go at once, and show him my young barbarians.' + +'I should,' said the dye-master. 'They are very rum, aren't +they? What frightful clothes, and what a lot of them! Observe +the covering of their feet. Hideous indeed.' + +Robert could not help thinking how easy, and at the same time +pleasant, it would be to catch hold of the dye-master's feet and +tip him backward into the great sunken vat just near him. But if +he had, flight would have had to be the next move, so he +restrained his impulse. + +There was something about this Tyrian adventure that was +different from all the others. It was, somehow, calmer. And +there was the undoubted fact that the charm was there on the neck +of the Egyptian. + +So they enjoyed everything to the full, the row from the Island +City to the shore, the ride on the donkeys that the skipper hired +at the gate of the mainland city, and the pleasant country--palms +and figs and cedars all about. It was like a garden--clematis, +honeysuckle, and jasmine clung about the olive and mulberry +trees, and there were tulips and gladiolus, and clumps of +mandrake, which has bell-flowers that look as though they were +cut out of dark blue jewels. In the distance were the mountains +of Lebanon. The house they came to at last was rather like a +bungalow--long and low, with pillars all along the front. Cedars +and sycamores grew near it and sheltered it pleasantly. + +Everyone dismounted, and the donkeys were led away. + +'Why is this like Rosherville?' whispered Robert, and instantly +supplied the answer. + +'Because it's the place to spend a happy day.' + +'It's jolly decent of the skipper to have brought us to such a +ripping place,' said Cyril. + +'Do you know,' said Anthea, 'this feels more real than anything +else we've seen? It's like a holiday in the country at home.' + +The children were left alone in a large hall. The floor was +mosaic, done with wonderful pictures of ships and sea-beasts and +fishes. Through an open doorway they could see a pleasant +courtyard with flowers. + +'I should like to spend a week here,' said Jane, 'and donkey ride +every day.' + +Everyone was feeling very jolly. Even the Egyptian looked +pleasanter than usual. And then, quite suddenly, the skipper +came back with a joyous smile. With him came the master of the +house. He looked steadily at the children and nodded twice. + +'Yes,' he said, 'my steward will pay you the price. But I shall +not pay at that high rate for the Egyptian dog.' + +The two passed on. + +'This,' said the Egyptian, 'is a pretty kettle of fish.' + +'What is?' asked all the children at once. + +'Our present position,' said Rekh-mara. 'Our seafaring friend,' +he added, 'has sold us all for slaves!' + + +A hasty council succeeded the shock of this announcement. The +Priest was allowed to take part in it. His advice was 'stay', +because they were in no danger, and the Amulet in its +completeness must be somewhere near, or, of course, they could +not have come to that place at all. And after some discussion +they agreed to this. + +The children were treated more as guests than as slaves, but the +Egyptian was sent to the kitchen and made to work. + +Pheles, the master of the house, went off that very evening, by +the King's orders, to start on another voyage. And when he was +gone his wife found the children amusing company, and kept them +talking and singing and dancing till quite late. 'To distract my +mind from my sorrows,' she said. + +'I do like being a slave,' remarked Jane cheerfully, as they +curled up on the big, soft cushions that were to be their beds. + +It was black night when they were awakened, each by a hand passed +softly over its face, and a low voice that whispered-- + +'Be quiet, or all is lost.' + +So they were quiet. + +'It's me, Rekh-mara, the Priest of Amen,' said the whisperer. +'The man who brought us has gone to sea again, and he has taken +my Amulet from me by force, and I know no magic to get it back. +Is there magic for that in the Amulet you bear?' + +Everyone was instantly awake by now. + +'We can go after him,' said Cyril, leaping up; 'but he might take +OURS as well; or he might be angry with us for following him.' + +'I'll see to THAT,' said the Egyptian in the dark. 'Hide your +Amulet well.' + +There in the deep blackness of that room in the Tyrian country +house the Amulet was once more held up and the word spoken. + +All passed through on to a ship that tossed and tumbled on a +wind-blown sea. They crouched together there till morning, and +Jane and Cyril were not at all well. When the dawn showed, +dove-coloured, across the steely waves, they stood up as well as +they could for the tumbling of the ship. Pheles, that hardy +sailor and adventurer, turned quite pale when he turned round +suddenly and saw them. + +'Well!' he said, 'well, I never did!' + +'Master,' said the Egyptian, bowing low, and that was even more +difficult than standing up, 'we are here by the magic of the +sacred Amulet that hangs round your neck.' + +'I never did!' repeated Pheles. 'Well, well!' + +'What port is the ship bound for?' asked Robert, with a nautical +air. + +But Pheles said, 'Are you a navigator?' Robert had to own that +he was not. + +'Then,' said Pheles, 'I don't mind telling you that we're bound +for the Tin Isles. Tyre alone knows where the Tin Isles are. It +is a splendid secret we keep from all the world. It is as great +a thing to us as your magic to you.' + +He spoke in quite a new voice, and seemed to respect both the +children and the Amulet a good deal more than he had done before. + +'The King sent you, didn't he?' said Jane. + +'Yes,' answered Pheles, 'he bade me set sail with half a score +brave gentlemen and this crew. You shall go with us, and see +many wonders.' He bowed and left them. + +'What are we going to do now?' said Robert, when Pheles had +caused them to be left along with a breakfast of dried fruits and +a sort of hard biscuit. + +'Wait till he lands in the Tin Isles,' said Rekh-mara, 'then we +can get the barbarians to help us. We will attack him by night +and tear the sacred Amulet from his accursed heathen neck,' he +added, grinding his teeth. + +'When shall we get to the Tin Isles?' asked Jane. + +'Oh--six months, perhaps, or a year,' said the Egyptian +cheerfully. + +'A year of THIS?' cried Jane, and Cyril, who was still feeling +far too unwell to care about breakfast, hugged himself miserably +and shuddered. It was Robert who said-- + +'Look here, we can shorten that year. Jane, out with the Amulet! +Wish that we were where the Amulet will be when the ship is +twenty miles from the Tin Island. That'll give us time to mature +our plans.' + +It was done--the work of a moment--and there they were on the +same ship, between grey northern sky and grey northern sea. The +sun was setting in a pale yellow line. It was the same ship, but +it was changed, and so were the crew. Weather-worn and dirty +were the sailors, and their clothes torn and ragged. And the +children saw that, of course, though they had skipped the nine +months, the ship had had to live through them. Pheles looked +thinner, and his face was rugged and anxious. + +'Ha!' he cried, 'the charm has brought you back! I have prayed +to it daily these nine months--and now you are here? Have you no +magic that can help?' + +'What is your need?' asked the Egyptian quietly. + +'I need a great wave that shall whelm away the foreign ship that +follows us. A month ago it lay in wait for us, by the pillars of +the gods, and it follows, follows, to find out the secret of +Tyre--the place of the Tin Islands. If I could steer by night I +could escape them yet, but tonight there will be no stars.' + +'My magic will not serve you here,' said the Egyptian. + +But Robert said, 'My magic will not bring up great waves, but I +can show you how to steer without stars.' + +He took out the shilling compass, still, fortunately, in working +order, that he had bought off another boy at school for +fivepence, a piece of indiarubber, a strip of whalebone, and half +a stick of red sealing-wax. + +And he showed Pheles how it worked. And Pheles wondered at the +compass's magic truth. + +'I will give it to you,' Robert said, 'in return for that charm +about your neck.' + +Pheles made no answer. He first laughed, snatched the compass +from Robert's hand, and turned away still laughing. + +'Be comforted,' the Priest whispered, 'our time will come.' + +The dusk deepened, and Pheles, crouched beside a dim lantern, +steered by the shilling compass from the Crystal Palace. + +No one ever knew how the other ship sailed, but suddenly, in the +deep night, the look-out man at the stern cried out in a terrible +voice-- + +'She is close upon us!' + +'And we,' said Pheles, 'are close to the harbour.' He was silent +a moment, then suddenly he altered the ship's course, and then he +stood up and spoke. + +'Good friends and gentlemen,' he said, 'who are bound with me in +this brave venture by our King's command, the false, foreign ship +is close on our heels. If we land, they land, and only the gods +know whether they might not beat us in fight, and themselves +survive to carry back the tale of Tyre's secret island to enrich +their own miserable land. Shall this be?' + +'Never!' cried the half-dozen men near him. The slaves were +rowing hard below and could not hear his words. + +The Egyptian leaped upon him; suddenly, fiercely, as a wild beast +leaps. 'Give me back my Amulet,' he cried, and caught at the +charm. The chain that held it snapped, and it lay in the +Priest's hand. + +Pheles laughed, standing balanced to the leap of the ship that +answered the oarstroke. + +'This is no time for charms and mummeries,' he said. 'We've +lived like men, and we'll die like gentlemen for the honour and +glory of Tyre, our splendid city. "Tyre, Tyre for ever! It's +Tyre that rules the waves." I steer her straight for the Dragon +rocks, and we go down for our city, as brave men should. The +creeping cowards who follow shall go down as slaves--and slaves +they shall be to us--when we live again. Tyre, Tyre for ever!' + +A great shout went up, and the slaves below joined in it. + +'Quick, the Amulet,' cried Anthea, and held it up. Rekh-mara +held up the one he had snatched from Pheles. The word was +spoken, and the two great arches grew on the plunging ship in the +shrieking wind under the dark sky. From each Amulet a great and +beautiful green light streamed and shone far out over the waves. +It illuminated, too, the black faces and jagged teeth of the +great rocks that lay not two ships' lengths from the boat's +peaked nose. + +'Tyre, Tyre for ever! It's Tyre that rules the waves!' the +voices of the doomed rose in a triumphant shout. The children +scrambled through the arch, and stood trembling and blinking in +the Fitzroy Street parlour, and in their ears still sounded the +whistle of the wind, and the rattle of the oars, the crash of the +ships bow on the rocks, and the last shout of the brave +gentlemen-adventurers who went to their deaths singing, for the +sake of the city they loved. + + +'And so we've lost the other half of the Amulet again,' said +Anthea, when they had told the Psammead all about it. + +'Nonsense, pooh!' said the Psammead. 'That wasn't the other +half. It was the same half that you've got--the one that wasn't +crushed and lost.' + +'But how could it be the same?' said Anthea gently. + +'Well, not exactly, of course. The one you've got is a good many +years older, but at any rate it's not the other one. What did +you say when you wished?' + +'I forget,' said Jane. + +'I don't,' said the Psammead. 'You said, "Take us where YOU +are"--and it did, so you see it was the same half.' + +'I see,' said Anthea. + +'But you mark my words,' the Psammead went on, 'you'll have +trouble with that Priest yet.' + +'Why, he was quite friendly,' said Anthea. + +'All the same you'd better beware of the Reverend Rekh-mara.' + +'Oh, I'm sick of the Amulet,' said Cyril, 'we shall never get +it.' + +'Oh yes we shall,' said Robert. 'Don't you remember December +3rd?' + +'Jinks!' said Cyril, 'I'd forgotten that.' + +'I don't believe it,' said Jane, 'and I don't feel at all well.' + +'If I were you,' said the Psammead, 'I should not go out into the +Past again till that date. You'll find it safer not to go where +you're likely to meet that Egyptian any more just at present.' + +'Of course we'll do as you say,' said Anthea soothingly, 'though +there's something about his face that I really do like.' + +'Still, you don't want to run after him, I suppose,' snapped the +Psammead. 'You wait till the 3rd, and then see what happens.' + +Cyril and Jane were feeling far from well, Anthea was always +obliging, so Robert was overruled. And they promised. And none +of them, not even the Psammead, at all foresaw, as you no doubt +do quite plainly, exactly what it was that WOULD happen on that +memorable date. + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +THE HEART'S DESIRE + +If I only had time I could tell you lots of things. For +instance, how, in spite of the advice of the Psammead, the four +children did, one very wet day, go through their Amulet Arch into +the golden desert, and there find the great Temple of Baalbec and +meet with the Phoenix whom they never thought to see again. And +how the Phoenix did not remember them at all until it went into a +sort of prophetic trance--if that can be called remembering. +But, alas! I HAVEN'T time, so I must leave all that out though it +was a wonderfully thrilling adventure. I must leave out, too, +all about the visit of the children to the Hippodrome with the +Psammead in its travelling bag, and about how the wishes of the +people round about them were granted so suddenly and surprisingly +that at last the Psammead had to be taken hurriedly home by +Anthea, who consequently missed half the performance. Then there +was the time when, Nurse having gone to tea with a friend out +Ivalunk way, they were playing 'devil in the dark'--and in the +midst of that most creepy pastime the postman's knock frightened +Jane nearly out of her life. She took in the letters, however, +and put them in the back of the hat-stand drawer, so that they +should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of +them again for weeks and weeks. + +One really good thing happened when they took the Psammead to a +magic-lantern show and lecture at the boys' school at Camden +Town. The lecture was all about our soldiers in South Africa. +And the lecturer ended up by saying, 'And I hope every boy in +this room has in his heart the seeds of courage and heroism and +self-sacrifice, and I wish that every one of you may grow up to +be noble and brave and unselfish, worthy citizens of this great +Empire for whom our soldiers have freely given their lives.' + +And, of course, this came true--which was a distinct score for +Camden Town. + +As Anthea said, it was unlucky that the lecturer said boys, +because now she and Jane would have to be noble and unselfish, if +at all, without any outside help. But Jane said, 'I daresay we +are already because of our beautiful natures. It's only boys +that have to be made brave by magic'--which nearly led to a +first-class row. + +And I daresay you would like to know all about the affair of the +fishing rod, and the fish-hooks, and the cook next door--which +was amusing from some points of view, though not perhaps the +cook's--but there really is no time even for that. + +The only thing that there's time to tell about is the Adventure +of Maskelyne and Cooke's, and the Unexpected Apparition--which is +also the beginning of the end. + +It was Nurse who broke into the gloomy music of the autumn rain +on the window panes by suggesting a visit to the Egyptian Hall, +England's Home of Mystery. Though they had good, but private +reasons to know that their own particular personal mystery was of +a very different brand, the four all brightened at the idea. All +children, as well as a good many grown-ups, love conjuring. + +'It's in Piccadilly,' said old Nurse, carefully counting out the +proper number of shillings into Cyril's hand, 'not so very far +down on the left from the Circus. There's big pillars outside, +something like Carter's seed place in Holborn, as used to be Day +and Martin's blacking when I was a gell. And something like +Euston Station, only not so big.' + +'Yes, I know,' said everybody. + +So they started. + +But though they walked along the left-hand side of Piccadilly +they saw no pillared building that was at all like Carter's seed +warehouse or Euston Station or England's Home of Mystery as they +remembered it. + +At last they stopped a hurried lady, and asked her the way to +Maskelyne and Cooke's. + +'I don't know, I'm sure,' she said, pushing past them. 'I always +shop at the Stores.' Which just shows, as Jane said, how +ignorant grown-up people are. + +It was a policeman who at last explained to them that England's +Mysteries are now appropriately enough enacted at St George's +Hall. + +So they tramped to Langham Place, and missed the first two items +in the programme. But they were in time for the most wonderful +magic appearances and disappearances, which they could hardly +believe--even with all their knowledge of a larger magic--was not +really magic after all. + +'If only the Babylonians could have seen THIS conjuring,' +whispered Cyril. 'It takes the shine out of their old conjurer, +doesn't it?' + +'Hush!' said Anthea and several other members of the audience. + +Now there was a vacant seat next to Robert. And it was when all +eyes were fixed on the stage where Mr Devant was pouring out +glasses of all sorts of different things to drink, out of one +kettle with one spout, and the audience were delightedly tasting +them, that Robert felt someone in that vacant seat. He did not +feel someone sit down in it. It was just that one moment there +was no one sitting there, and the next moment, suddenly, there +was someone. + +Robert turned. The someone who had suddenly filled that empty +place was Rekh-mara, the Priest of Amen! + +Though the eyes of the audience were fixed on Mr David Devant, Mr +David Devant's eyes were fixed on the audience. And it happened +that his eyes were more particularly fixed on that empty chair. +So that he saw quite plainly the sudden appearance, from nowhere, +of the Egyptian Priest. + +'A jolly good trick,' he said to himself, 'and worked under my +own eyes, in my own hall. I'll find out how that's done.' He +had never seen a trick that he could not do himself if he tried. + +By this time a good many eyes in the audience had turned on the +clean-shaven, curiously-dressed figure of the Egyptian Priest. + +'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Mr Devant, rising to the occasion, +'this is a trick I have never before performed. The empty seat, +third from the end, second row, gallery--you will now find +occupied by an Ancient Egyptian, warranted genuine.' + +He little knew how true his words were. + +And now all eyes were turned on the Priest and the children, and +the whole audience, after a moment's breathless surprise, shouted +applause. Only the lady on the other side of Rekh-mara drew back +a little. She KNEW no one had passed her, and, as she said +later, over tea and cold tongue, 'it was that sudden it made her +flesh creep.' + +Rekh-mara seemed very much annoyed at the notice he was exciting. + +'Come out of this crowd,' he whispered to Robert. 'I must talk +with you apart.' + +'Oh, no,' Jane whispered. 'I did so want to see the Mascot Moth, +and the Ventriloquist.' + +'How did you get here?' was Robert's return whisper. + +'How did you get to Egypt and to Tyre?' retorted Rekh-mara. +'Come, let us leave this crowd.' + +'There's no help for it, I suppose,' Robert shrugged angrily. +But they all got up. + +'Confederates!' said a man in the row behind. 'Now they go round +to the back and take part in the next scene.' + +'I wish we did,' said Robert. + +'Confederate yourself!' said Cyril. And so they got away, the +audience applauding to the last. + +In the vestibule of St George's Hall they disguised Rekh-mara as +well as they could, but even with Robert's hat and Cyril's +Inverness cape he was too striking a figure for foot-exercise in +the London streets. It had to be a cab, and it took the last, +least money of all of them. They stopped the cab a few doors +from home, and then the girls went in and engaged old Nurse's +attention by an account of the conjuring and a fervent entreaty +for dripping-toast with their tea, leaving the front door open so +that while Nurse was talking to them the boys could creep quietly +in with Rekh-mara and smuggle him, unseen, up the stairs into +their bedroom. + +When the girls came up they found the Egyptian Priest sitting on +the side of Cyril's bed, his hands on his knees, looking like a +statue of a king. + +'Come on,' said Cyril impatiently. 'He won't begin till we're +all here. And shut the door, can't you?' + +When the door was shut the Egyptian said-- + +'My interests and yours are one.' + +'Very interesting,' said Cyril, 'and it'll be a jolly sight more +interesting if you keep following us about in a decent country +with no more clothes on than THAT!' + +'Peace,' said the Priest. 'What is this country? and what is +this time?' + +'The country's England,' said Anthea, 'and the time's about 6,000 +years later than YOUR time.' + +'The Amulet, then,' said the Priest, deeply thoughtful, 'gives +the power to move to and fro in time as well as in space?' + +'That's about it,' said Cyril gruffly. 'Look here, it'll be +tea-time directly. What are we to do with you?' + +'You have one-half of the Amulet, I the other,' said Rekh-mara. +'All that is now needed is the pin to join them.' + +'Don't you think it,' said Robert. 'The half you've got is the +same half as the one we've got.' + +'But the same thing cannot be in the same place and the same +time, and yet be not one, but twain,' said the Priest. 'See, +here is my half.' He laid it on the Marcella counterpane. +'Where is yours?' + +Jane watching the eyes of the others, unfastened the string of +the Amulet and laid it on the bed, but too far off for the Priest +to seize it, even if he had been so dishonourable. Cyril and +Robert stood beside him, ready to spring on him if one of his +hands had moved but ever so little towards the magic treasure +that was theirs. But his hands did not move, only his eyes +opened very wide, and so did everyone else's for the Amulet the +Priest had now quivered and shook; and then, as steel is drawn to +the magnet, it was drawn across the white counterpane, nearer and +nearer to the Amulet, warm from the neck of Jane. And then, as +one drop of water mingles with another on a rain-wrinkled +window-pane, as one bead of quick-silver is drawn into another +bead, Rekh-mara's Amulet slipped into the other one, and, behold! +there was no more but the one Amulet! + +'Black magic!' cried Rekh-mara, and sprang forward to snatch the +Amulet that had swallowed his. But Anthea caught it up, and at +the same moment the Priest was jerked back by a rope thrown over +his head. It drew, tightened with the pull of his forward leap, +and bound his elbows to his sides. Before he had time to use his +strength to free himself, Robert had knotted the cord behind him +and tied it to the bedpost. Then the four children, overcoming +the priest's wrigglings and kickings, tied his legs with more +rope. + +'I thought,' said Robert, breathing hard, and drawing the last +knot tight, 'he'd have a try for OURS, so I got the ropes out of +the box-room, so as to be ready.' + +The girls, with rather white faces, applauded his foresight. + +'Loosen these bonds!' cried Rekh-mara in fury, 'before I blast +you with the seven secret curses of Amen-Ra!' + +'We shouldn't be likely to loose them AFTER,' Robert retorted. + +'Oh, don't quarrel!' said Anthea desperately. 'Look here, he has +just as much right to the thing as we have. This,' she took up +the Amulet that had swallowed the other one, 'this has got his in +it as well as being ours. Let's go shares.' + +'Let me go!' cried the Priest, writhing. + +'Now, look here,' said Robert, 'if you make a row we can just +open that window and call the police--the guards, you know--and +tell them you've been trying to rob us. NOW will you shut up and +listen to reason?' + +'I suppose so,' said Rekh-mara sulkily. + +But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered counsel +had been held in the far corner by the washhand-stand and the +towel-horse, a counsel rather long and very earnest. + +At last Anthea detached herself from the group, and went back to +the Priest. + +'Look here,' she said in her kind little voice, 'we want to be +friends. We want to help you. Let's make a treaty. Let's join +together to get the Amulet--the whole one, I mean. And then it +shall belong to you as much as to us, and we shall all get our +hearts' desire.' + +'Fair words,' said the Priest, 'grow no onions.' + +'WE say, "Butter no parsnips",' Jane put in. 'But don't you see +we WANT to be fair? Only we want to bind you in the chains of +honour and upright dealing.' + +'Will you deal fairly by us?' said Robert. + +'I will,' said the Priest. 'By the sacred, secret name that is +written under the Altar of Amen-Ra, I will deal fairly by you. +Will you, too, take the oath of honourable partnership?' + +'No,' said Anthea, on the instant, and added rather rashly. 'We +don't swear in England, except in police courts, where the guards +are, you know, and you don't want to go there. But when we SAY +we'll do a thing--it's the same as an oath to us--we do it. You +trust us, and we'll trust you.' She began to unbind his legs, +and the boys hastened to untie his arms. + +When he was free he stood up, stretched his arms, and laughed. + +'Now,' he said, 'I am stronger than you and my oath is void. I +have sworn by nothing, and my oath is nothing likewise. For +there IS no secret, sacred name under the altar of Amen-Ra.' + +'Oh, yes there is!' said a voice from under the bed. Everyone +started--Rekh-mara most of all. + +Cyril stooped and pulled out the bath of sand where the Psammead +slept. 'You don't know everything, though you ARE a Divine Father +of the Temple of Amen,' said the Psammead shaking itself till the +sand fell tinkling on the bath edge. 'There IS a secret, sacred +name beneath the altar of Amen-Ra. Shall I call on that name?' + +'No, no!' cried the Priest in terror. + +'No,' said Jane, too. 'Don't let's have any calling names.' + +'Besides,' said Rekh-mara, who had turned very white indeed under +his natural brownness, 'I was only going to say that though there +isn't any name under--' + +'There IS,' said the Psammead threateningly. + +'Well, even if there WASN'T, I will be bound by the wordless oath +of your strangely upright land, and having said that I will be +your friend--I will be it.' + +'Then that's all right,' said the Psammead; 'and there's the +tea-bell. What are you going to do with your distinguished +partner? He can't go down to tea like that, you know.' + +'You see we can't do anything till the 3rd of December,' said +Anthea, 'that's when we are to find the whole charm. What can we +do with Rekh-mara till then?' + +'Box-room,' said Cyril briefly, 'and smuggle up his meals. It +will be rather fun.' + +'Like a fleeing Cavalier concealed from exasperated Roundheads,' +said Robert. 'Yes.' + +So Rekh-mara was taken up to the box-room and made as comfortable +as possible in a snug nook between an old nursery fender and the +wreck of a big four-poster. They gave him a big rag-bag to sit +on, and an old, moth-eaten fur coat off the nail on the door to +keep him warm. And when they had had their own tea they took him +some. He did not like the tea at all, but he liked the bread and +butter, and cake that went with it. They took it in turns to sit +with him during the evening, and left him fairly happy and quite +settled for the night. + + +But when they went up in the morning with a kipper, a quarter of +which each of them had gone without at breakfast, Rekh-mara was +gone! There was the cosy corner with the rag-bag, and the +moth-eaten fur coat--but the cosy corner was empty. + +'Good riddance!' was naturally the first delightful thought in +each mind. The second was less pleasing, because everyone at +once remembered that since his Amulet had been swallowed up by +theirs--which hung once more round the neck of Jane--he could +have no possible means of returning to his Egyptian past. +Therefore he must be still in England, and probably somewhere +quite near them, plotting mischief. + +The attic was searched, to prevent mistakes, but quite vainly. + +'The best thing we can do,' said Cyril, 'is to go through the +half Amulet straight away, get the whole Amulet, and come back.' + +'I don't know,' Anthea hesitated. 'Would that be quite fair? +Perhaps he isn't really a base deceiver. Perhaps something's +happened to him.' + +'Happened?' said Cyril, 'not it! Besides, what COULD happen?' + +'I don't know,' said Anthea. 'Perhaps burglars came in the +night, and accidentally killed him, and took away the--all that +was mortal of him, you know--to avoid discovery.' + +'Or perhaps,' said Cyril, 'they hid the--all that was mortal, in +one of those big trunks in the box-room. SHALL WE GO BACK AND +LOOK?' he added grimly. + +'No, no!' Jane shuddered. 'Let's go and tell the Psammead and +see what it says.' + +'No,' said Anthea, 'let's ask the learned gentleman. If anything +has happened to Rekh-mara a gentleman's advice would be more +useful than a Psammead's. And the learned gentleman'll only +think it's a dream, like he always does.' + +They tapped at the door, and on the 'Come in' entered. The +learned gentleman was sitting in front of his untasted breakfast. + +Opposite him, in the easy chair, sat Rekh-mara! + +'Hush!' said the learned gentleman very earnestly, 'please, hush! +or the dream will go. I am learning ... Oh, what have I not +learned in the last hour!' + +'In the grey dawn,' said the Priest, 'I left my hiding-place, and +finding myself among these treasures from my own country, I +remained. I feel more at home here somehow.' + +'Of course I know it's a dream,' said the learned gentleman +feverishly, 'but, oh, ye gods! what a dream! By jove! ...' + +'Call not upon the gods,' said the Priest, 'lest ye raise greater +ones than ye can control. Already,' he explained to the +children, 'he and I are as brothers, and his welfare is dear to +me as my own.' + +'He has told me,' the learned gentleman began, but Robert +interrupted. This was no moment for manners. + +'Have you told him,' he asked the Priest, 'all about the Amulet?' + +'No,' said Rekh-mara. + +'Then tell him now. He is very learned. Perhaps he can tell us +what to do.' + +Rekh-mara hesitated, then told--and, oddly enough, none of the +children ever could remember afterwards what it was that he did +tell. Perhaps he used some magic to prevent their remembering. + +When he had done the learned gentleman was silent, leaning his +elbow on the table and his head on his hand. + +'Dear Jimmy,' said Anthea gently, 'don't worry about it. We are +sure to find it today, somehow.' + +'Yes,' said Rekh-mara, 'and perhaps, with it, Death.' + +'It's to bring us our hearts' desire,' said Robert. + +'Who knows,' said the Priest, 'what things undreamed-of and +infinitely desirable lie beyond the dark gates?' + +'Oh, DON'T,' said Jane, almost whimpering. + +The learned gentleman raised his head suddenly. + +'Why not,' he suggested, 'go back into the Past? At a moment +when the Amulet is unwatched. Wish to be with it, and that it +shall be under your hand.' + +It was the simplest thing in the world! And yet none of them had +ever thought of it. + +'Come,' cried Rekh-mara, leaping up. 'Come NOW!' + +'May--may I come?' the learned gentleman timidly asked. 'It's +only a dream, you know.' + +'Come, and welcome, oh brother,' Rekh-mara was beginning, but +Cyril and Robert with one voice cried, 'NO.' + +'You weren't with us in Atlantis,' Robert added, 'or you'd know +better than to let him come.' + +'Dear Jimmy,' said Anthea, 'please don't ask to come. We'll go +and be back again before you have time to know that we're gone.' + +'And he, too?' + +'We must keep together,' said Rekh-mara, 'since there is but one +perfect Amulet to which I and these children have equal claims.' + +Jane held up the Amulet--Rekh-mara went first--and they all +passed through the great arch into which the Amulet grew at the +Name of Power. + +The learned gentleman saw through the arch a darkness lighted by +smoky gleams. He rubbed his eyes. And he only rubbed them for +ten seconds. + + +The children and the Priest were in a small, dark chamber. A +square doorway of massive stone let in gleams of shifting light, +and the sound of many voices chanting a slow, strange hymn. They +stood listening. Now and then the chant quickened and the light +grew brighter, as though fuel had been thrown on a fire. + +'Where are we?' whispered Anthea. + +'And when?' whispered Robert. + +'This is some shrine near the beginnings of belief,' said the +Egyptian shivering. 'Take the Amulet and come away. It is cold +here in the morning of the world.' + +And then Jane felt that her hand was on a slab or table of stone, +and, under her hand, something that felt like the charm that had +so long hung round her neck, only it was thicker. Twice as +thick. + +'It's HERE!' she said, 'I've got it!' And she hardly knew the +sound of her own voice. + +'Come away,' repeated Rekh-mara. + +'I wish we could see more of this Temple,' said Robert +resistingly. + +'Come away,' the Priest urged, 'there is death all about, and +strong magic. Listen.' + +The chanting voices seemed to have grown louder and fiercer, and +light stronger. + +'They are coming!' cried Rekh-mara. 'Quick, quick, the Amulet!' + +Jane held it up. + + +'What a long time you've been rubbing your eyes!' said Anthea; +'don't you see we've got back?' The learned gentleman merely +stared at her. + +'Miss Anthea--Miss Jane!' It was Nurse's voice, very much higher +and squeaky and more exalted than usual. + +'Oh, bother!' said everyone. Cyril adding, 'You just go on with +the dream for a sec, Mr Jimmy, we'll be back directly. Nurse'll +come up if we don't. SHE wouldn't think Rekh-mara was a dream.' + +Then they went down. Nurse was in the hall, an orange envelope +in one hand, and a pink paper in the other. + +'Your Pa and Ma's come home. "Reach London 11.15. Prepare +rooms as directed in letter", and signed in their two names.' + +'Oh, hooray! hooray! hooray!' shouted the boys and Jane. But +Anthea could not shout, she was nearer crying. + +'Oh,' she said almost in a whisper, 'then it WAS true. And we +HAVE got our hearts' desire.' + +'But I don't understand about the letter,' Nurse was saying. 'I +haven't HAD no letter.' + +'OH!' said Jane in a queer voice, 'I wonder whether it was one of +those ... they came that night--you know, when we were playing +"devil in the dark"--and I put them in the hat-stand drawer, +behind the clothes-brushes and'--she pulled out the drawer as she +spoke--'and here they are!' + +There was a letter for Nurse and one for the children. The +letters told how Father had done being a war-correspondent and +was coming home; and how Mother and The Lamb were going to meet +him in Italy and all come home together; and how The Lamb and +Mother were quite well; and how a telegram would be sent to tell +the day and the hour of their home-coming. + +'Mercy me!' said old Nurse. 'I declare if it's not too bad of +You, Miss Jane. I shall have a nice to-do getting things +straight for your Pa and Ma.' + +'Oh, never mind, Nurse,' said Jane, hugging her; 'isn't it just +too lovely for anything!' + +'We'll come and help you,' said Cyril. 'There's just something +upstairs we've got to settle up, and then we'll all come and help +you.' + +'Get along with you,' said old Nurse, but she laughed jollily. +'Nice help YOU'D be. I know you. And it's ten o'clock now.' + + +There was, in fact, something upstairs that they had to settle. +Quite a considerable something, too. And it took much longer +than they expected. + +A hasty rush into the boys' room secured the Psammead, very sandy +and very cross. + +'It doesn't matter how cross and sandy it is though,' said +Anthea, 'it ought to be there at the final council.' + +'It'll give the learned gentleman fits, I expect,' said Robert, +'when he sees it.' + +But it didn't. + +'The dream is growing more and more wonderful,' he exclaimed, +when the Psammead had been explained to him by Rekh-mara. 'I +have dreamed this beast before.' + +'Now,' said Robert, 'Jane has got the half Amulet and I've got +the whole. Show up, Jane.' + +Jane untied the string and laid her half Amulet on the table, +littered with dusty papers, and the clay cylinders marked all +over with little marks like the little prints of birds' little +feet. Robert laid down the whole Amulet, and Anthea gently +restrained the eager hand of the learned gentleman as it reached +out yearningly towards the 'perfect specimen'. + +And then, just as before on the Marcella quilt, so now on the +dusty litter of papers and curiosities, the half Amulet quivered +and shook, and then, as steel is drawn to a magnet, it was drawn +across the dusty manuscripts, nearer and nearer to the perfect +Amulet, warm from the pocket of Robert. And then, as one drop of +water mingles with another when the panes of the window are +wrinkled with rain, as one bead of mercury is drawn into another +bead, the half Amulet, that was the children's and was also +Rekh-mara's,--slipped into the whole Amulet, and, behold! there +was only one--the perfect and ultimate Charm. + +'And THAT'S all right,' said the Psammead, breaking a breathless +silence. + +'Yes,' said Anthea, 'and we've got our hearts' desire. Father +and Mother and The Lamb are coming home today.' + +'But what about me?' said Rekh-mara. + +'What IS your heart's desire?' Anthea asked. + +'Great and deep learning,' said the Priest, without a moment's +hesitation. 'A learning greater and deeper than that of any man +of my land and my time. But learning too great is useless. If I +go back to my own land and my own age, who will believe my tales +of what I have seen in the future? Let me stay here, be the +great knower of all that has been, in that our time, so living to +me, so old to you, about which your learned men speculate +unceasingly, and often, HE tells me, vainly.' + +'If I were you,' said the Psammead, 'I should ask the Amulet +about that. It's a dangerous thing, trying to live in a time +that's not your own. You can't breathe an air that's thousands +of centuries ahead of your lungs without feeling the effects of +it, sooner or later. Prepare the mystic circle and consult the +Amulet.' + +'Oh, WHAT a dream!' cried the learned gentleman. 'Dear children, +if you love me--and I think you do, in dreams and out of +them--prepare the mystic circle and consult the Amulet!' + +They did. As once before, when the sun had shone in August +splendour, they crouched in a circle on the floor. Now the air +outside was thick and yellow with the fog that by some strange +decree always attends the Cattle Show week. And in the street +costers were shouting. 'Ur Hekau Setcheh,' Jane said the Name of +Power. And instantly the light went out, and all the sounds went +out too, so that there was a silence and a darkness, both deeper +than any darkness or silence that you have ever even dreamed of +imagining. It was like being deaf or blind, only darker and +quieter even than that. + +Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a +voice. The light was too faint to see anything by, and the voice +was too small for you to hear what it said. But the light and +the voice grew. And the light was the light that no man may look +on and live, and the voice was the sweetest and most terrible +voice in the world. The children cast down their eyes. And so +did everyone. + +'I speak,' said the voice. 'What is it that you would hear?' + +There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak. + +'What are we to do about Rekh-mara?' said Robert suddenly and +abruptly. 'Shall he go back through the Amulet to his own time, +or--' + +'No one can pass through the Amulet now,' said the beautiful, +terrible voice, 'to any land or any time. Only when it was +imperfect could such things be. But men may pass through the +perfect charm to the perfect union, which is not of time or +space.' + +'Would you be so very kind,' said Anthea tremulously, 'as to +speak so that we can understand you? The Psammead said +something about Rekh-mara not being able to live here, and if he +can't get back--' She stopped, her heart was beating desperately +in her throat, as it seemed. + +'Nobody can continue to live in a land and in a time not +appointed,' said the voice of glorious sweetness. 'But a soul +may live, if in that other time and land there be found a soul so +akin to it as to offer it refuge, in the body of that land and +time, that thus they two may be one soul in one body.' + +The children exchanged discouraged glances. But the eyes of +Rekh-mara and the learned gentleman met, and were kind to each +other, and promised each other many things, secret and sacred and +very beautiful. + +Anthea saw the look. 'Oh, but,' she said, without at all meaning +to say it, 'dear Jimmy's soul isn't at all like Rekh-mara's. I'm +certain it isn't. I don't want to be rude, but it ISN'T, you +know. Dear Jimmy's soul is as good as gold, and--' + +'Nothing that is not good can pass beneath the double arch of my +perfect Amulet,' said the voice. 'If both are willing, say the +word of Power, and let the two souls become one for ever and ever +more.' + +'Shall I?' asked Jane. + +'Yes.' + +'Yes.' + +The voices were those of the Egyptian Priest and the learned +gentleman, and the voices were eager, alive, thrilled with hope +and the desire of great things. + +So Jane took the Amulet from Robert and held it up between the +two men, and said, for the last time, the word of Power. + +'Ur Hekau Setcheh.' + +The perfect Amulet grew into a double arch; the two arches leaned +to each other making a great A. + +'A stands for Amen,' whispered Jane; 'what he was a priest of.' + +'Hush!' breathed Anthea. + +The great double arch glowed in and through the green light that +had been there since the Name of Power had first been spoken--it +glowed with a light more bright yet more soft than the other +light--a glory and splendour and sweetness unspeakable. 'Come!' +cried Rekh-mara, holding out his hands. + +'Come!' cried the learned gentleman, and he also held out his +hands. + +Each moved forward under the glowing, glorious arch of the +perfect Amulet. + +Then Rekh-mara quavered and shook, and as steel is drawn to a +magnet he was drawn, under the arch of magic, nearer and nearer +to the learned gentleman. And, as one drop of water mingles with +another, when the window-glass is rain-wrinkled, as one +quick-silver bead is drawn to another quick-silver bead, +Rekh-mara, Divine Father of the Temple of Amen-Ra, was drawn +into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one with Jimmy, the +good, the beloved, the learned gentleman. + +And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone. +The fog has passed away like a dream. + +The Amulet was there--little and complete in jane's hand, and +there were the other children and the Psammead, and the learned +gentleman. But Rekh-mara--or the body of Rekh-mara--was not +there any more. As for his soul ... + +'Oh, the horrid thing!' cried Robert, and put his foot on a +centipede as long as your finger, that crawled and wriggled and +squirmed at the learned gentleman's feet. + +'THAT,' said the Psammead, 'WAS the evil in the soul of +Rekh-mara.' + +There was a deep silence. + +'Then Rekh-mara's HIM now?' said Jane at last. + +'All that was good in Rekh-mara,' said the Psammead. + +'HE ought to have his heart's desire, too,' said Anthea, in a +sort of stubborn gentleness. + +'HIS heart's desire,' said the Psammead, 'is the perfect Amulet +you hold in your hand. Yes--and has been ever since he first saw +the broken half of it.' + +'We've got ours,' said Anthea softly. + +'Yes,' said the Psammead--its voice was crosser than they had +ever heard it--'your parents are coming home. And what's to +become of ME? I shall be found out, and made a show of, and +degraded in every possible way. I KNOW they'll make me go into +Parliament--hateful place--all mud and no sand. That beautiful +Baalbec temple in the desert! Plenty of good sand there, and no +politics! I wish I were there, safe in the Past--that I do.' + +'I wish you were,' said the learned gentleman absently, yet +polite as ever. + +The Psammead swelled itself up, turned its long snail's eyes in +one last lingering look at Anthea--a loving look, she always +said, and thought--and--vanished. + +'Well,' said Anthea, after a silence, 'I suppose it's happy. The +only thing it ever did really care for was SAND.' + +'My dear children,' said the learned gentleman, 'I must have +fallen asleep. I've had the most extraordinary dream.' + +'I hope it was a nice one,' said Cyril with courtesy. + +'Yes.... I feel a new man after it. Absolutely a new man.' + +There was a ring at the front-door bell. The opening of a door. +Voices. + +'It's THEM!' cried Robert, and a thrill ran through four hearts. + +'Here!' cried Anthea, snatching the Amulet from Jane and pressing +it into the hand of the learned gentleman. 'Here--it's +yours--your very own--a present from us, because you're Rekh-mara +as well as ... I mean, because you're such a dear.' + +She hugged him briefly but fervently, and the four swept down the +stairs to the hall, where a cabman was bringing in boxes, and +where, heavily disguised in travelling cloaks and wraps, was +their hearts' desire--three-fold--Mother, Father, and The Lamb. + + +'Bless me!' said the learned gentleman, left alone, 'bless me! +What a treasure! The dear children! It must be their affection +that has given me these luminous apercus. I seem to see so many +things now--things I never saw before! The dear children! The +dear, dear children!' + + + + + +Project Gutenberg Etext of The Story of the Amulet, by E. 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