The Story of the Amulet.....................................................................................................................................1

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 furand it had hands and feet

like a monkey's. It told the childrenwhose names were Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Janethat it was a

Psammead or sandfairy. (Psammead is pronounced Sammyad.) 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

And the Psammead, touched by this friendly thought, granted the wish. The book about all this is called Five

'The children DID see the Psammead again, but it was not in the sandpit; it wasbut 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

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

thingsand 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 forthe 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 LambI mean the babywas 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 grownup 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 messkit 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

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

Teawith shrimps and watercresscheered them a little. The watercress was arranged in a hedge round a

fat glass saltcellar, 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 eaudecologne 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

She found the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by the efforts of Robert, who, to make the time

'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 Englandand 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

gardenlate roses, asters, marigold, sweet mignonette, and feathery asparagusof 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 cherrytrees'. They thought of the view across the valley, where the limekilns

looked like Aladdin's palaces in the sunshine, and they thought of their own sandpit, with its fringe of

yellowy grasses and palestringystalked wild flowers, and the little holes in the cliff that were the little

sandmartins' little front doors. And they thought of the free fresh air smelling of thyme and sweetbriar, and

the scent of the woodsmoke from the cottages in the laneand they looked round old Nurse's stuffy

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 curtainsthe colour that blood would not make a stain onwith 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 chairsfar too many of themwith 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 chainstitch

pattern round it. Over the fireplace was a lookingglass 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 tombit 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.

There were two bookslast December's Bradshaw, and an odd volume of Plumridge's Commentary on

Thessalonians. There werebut I cannot dwell longer on this painful picture. It was indeed, as Jane said,

'There's nothing to have ANYTHING about,' said Robert kicking the leg of the table miserably.

'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

'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 topfloor. And there was no one else Father could entrust to take care of

usand you know it's taken a lot of money, Mother's going to Madeira to be made well.'

'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

'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

'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,

'Three cheers for thoughtful Jane,' cried Cyril, now roused at last from his yawning despair. 'I say, let's go

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

They had promised to be home by dark, but it was July, so dark would be very late indeed, and long past

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 goldlace 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

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 himselfand of course Cyril couldn't vote against him

because it would have looked like a mean jealousy), they came into the little interesting crisscrossy streets

that held the most interesting shops of allthe 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 themand then they felt

how desperately unhappy anything with wings must be if it is shut up in a cage and not allowed to fly.

They went on, and Cyril tried to think out a scheme for making his fortune as a golddigger 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 dogshop, 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

'Grrrrr,' he seemed to say, as he looked at them from the back corner of his eye'YOU won't buy me.

Nobody willeverI shall die chained upand 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

Of course they could not buy any of the dogs. They did, indeed, ask the price of the very, very smallest, and it

was sixtyfive poundsbut 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

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 weresuch as goldfish

and white mice, and seaanemones and other aquarium beasts, and lizards and toads, and hedgehogs and

tortoises, and tame rabbits and guineapigs. And there they stopped for a long time, and fed the guineapigs

with bits of bread through the cagebars, and wondered whether it would be possible to keep a

'I don't suppose old Nurse would mind VERY much,' said Jane. 'Rabbits are most awfully tame sometimes. I

'There aren't any snakes, said Robert hastily, 'and besides, I never could cotton to snakes somehowI

'Worms are as bad,' said Anthea, 'and eels and slugsI think it's because we don't like things that haven't got

'Yesand he says WE'VE got tails hidden away inside usbut it doesn't either of it come to anything

'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 unmistakablynot in any squeak or whine that had to be

Cyril started as though he had been pinched, and jumped a yard away from the hutch.

'Come backoh, come back!' said the voice, rather louder but still softly; 'stoop down and pretend to be

Cyril mechanically obeyed. He knelt on one knee on the dry, hot dusty pavement, peered into the darkness of

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

'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 herebut 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. OhI never thought I

should be so glad to see youI 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 kiddingand I appeal to your honour,' an appeal which in this family was never

made in vain. 'Don't look at that hutchlook at the white rat. Now you are not to look at that hutch whatever

'Now get yourselves ready for a great surprise. In that hutch there's an old friend of oursDON'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.

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

Cyril stooped again, busying himself with the other bootlace and listened for the Psammead's further

'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 tailthe mangy old thing in the third hutch from the end." Ohdon't mind MY

feelingscall me a mangy monkeyI've tried hard enough to look like one! I don't think he'll put a high

price on meI've bitten him eleven times since I came here the day before yesterday. If he names a bigger

'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 Sandfairy in trembling but affectionate tones, 'but find out how much

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.

'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 buyerbut 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 wellmeaningly 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

'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

'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

The children looked at each othertwentythree 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 twentythree shillings and fivepence,' said Cyril, rattling the money in his

'Twentythree farthings and somebody's own cheek,' said the dealer, for he did not believe that Cyril had so

'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

'Why, I HAVE got it after all,' she said; 'here's the money, now let's have the Sammy,... the monkey I mean.'

'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 hutchopened the door gingerly, and made a sudden fierce grab at the

'Here, take the brute,' said the shopman, squeezing the Psammead so tight that he nearly choked it. 'It's bit me

'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

'But you can't take it home like that,' Cyril said, 'we shall have a crowd after us,' and indeed two errand boys

'I can't give you nothink only a paperbag, 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 paperbag 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.'

'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

The children trembling in agitation and excitement, carried home the Psammead, trembling in its paperbag.

When they got it home, Anthea nursed it, and stroked it, and would have cried over it, if she hadn't

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

The children hid the bath under the girls' bed, and had supper. Old Nurse had got them a lovely supper of

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 guineapig'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

'I daresay I shall pick a bit presently,' it said; 'but sand is all I care aboutit'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

'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 dullbut it'll be only like having a pet dog

'Oh, don't be so discontented,' said Anthea. 'If it can't do anything else it can tell us about Megatheriums and

Long agothat is to say last summerthe 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 Psammeadwish, 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 awayit was a very nice breakfast with hot rolls to it, a luxury quite out of

'You must have bolted your breakfast most unwholesomely,' it said, 'you can't have been five minutes over it.'

'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

She knelt before the sandbath 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

Anthea wrapped it in her pinafore and carried it downstairs. It was welcomed in a thrilling silence. At last

'What place is this?' asked the Psammead, shooting its eyes out and turning them slowly round.

'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?'

'Don't be silly,' it said sharply. 'Of course, it's quite natural that you should like your brothers and sisters to

'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane. 'Anthea was quite right. What was it you were going to say when she stopped

'I'll tell you,' said the Psammead, 'since you're so anxious to know. I was going to say this. You've saved my

lifeand I'm not ungratefulbut it doesn't change your nature or mine. You're still very ignorant, and rather

'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.'

'Well,' said the Psammead, 'then that's settled. We're to be treated as we deserve. I with respect, and all of you

withbut 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

The others all said yesand fidgeted in their chairs. Robert spoke the wishes of all when he said

'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,

'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 Babylonthough it's not a bit like the

old Babylonand he sold me to the man you bought me from, and then I bit them both. Now, what's your

'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

Merely from habit, the Sandfairy began to blow itself out, but it stopped short suddenly.

'Nobut look here,' said Cyril, 'couldn't we call in old Nurse and get her to say SHE wishes they were safe

'No go,' said the Psammead. 'It's just the same as your wishing yourself if you get some one else to wish for

'Ah yes,' said the creature, 'but you didn't ASK him to wish, and you didn't know what would happen if he

'Then you can't help us at all,' said Jane; 'ohI 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

'Now DON'T,' said the Psammead hastily; 'you know how it always upsets me if you cry. I can't feel safe a

'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 sothe first one, I meanwent into a shop to ask how

much something costI think he said it was a concertinaand 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

The children looked at each other and then at the Psammead. Then Cyril coughed awkwardly and took

'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 charmwe haven't got over and above too much tin, and if we blue it all on this charm and

'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

pocketmoney till Daddy comes homeunless 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 madeupdon't you see we are? Let's get

So everybody got its hat. The Psammead was put into a flat bassbag 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

The Psammead poked a wary eye out of the top of the basket every now and then, and told the children which

At last they came to THE shop. It had all sorts and kinds of things in the windowconcertinas, and silk

handkerchiefs, china vases and teacups, blue Japanese jars, pipes, swords, pistols, lace collars, silver spoons

tied up in halfdozens, and weddingrings in a red lacquered basin. There were officers' epaulets and doctors'

lancets. There were teacaddies inlaid with red turtleshell and brass curlywurlies, 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

motherofpearl card counters, old seals, paste buckles, snuffboxes, and all sorts of little dingy odds and

The Psammead put its head quite out of the fishbasket to look in the window, when Cyril said

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 slatepencils. Its fur bristled thickly, and its voice was quite hoarse with excitement as it

'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

'Is it that thing something like a horseshoe?' asked Cyril. 'And red, like the common sealingwax 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

So the others flattened their noses against the shop window, and presently a large, dirty, shortfingered hand

with a very big diamond ring came stretching through the green halfcurtains at the back of the shop window

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 timeif she had had moneyto 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

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

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 seemedand indeed had beenpossible. But

it was hard to believe that anything really wonderful could happen so near the Tottenham Court Road. But the

Psammead was thereand it in itself was wonderful. And it could talkand 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 fishbag, but it did not say anythingperhaps for fear of

They got home at last, very hot indeed, and set the Psammead on the green tablecloth.

But the Psammead had to have a plate of sand fetched for it, for it was quite faint. When it had refreshed

'Now then! Let me see the charm,' and Anthea laid it on the green tablecover. The Psammead shot out his

'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 sevenandsix.''Oh, bother, bother,

bother!''Don't be silly little idiots!' said everyone and the Psammead altogether.

'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

So Cyril went to the shop. And the Psammead to sand. And the other three went to dinner, which was now

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.

'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 arkysomething 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

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 applepudding

'Well,' it said, when it had heard the news, 'things might be worse. Only you won't be surprised if you have a

'No,' said the Psammead, 'I seem to remember that about you. Well, sit down and listen with all your ears.

Eight, are there? RightI am glad you know arithmetic. Now pay attention, because I don't intend to tell you

As the children settled themselves on the floorit was far more comfortable than the chairs, as well as more

polite to the Psammead, who was stroking its whiskers on the hearthruga sudden cold pain caught at

Anthea's heart. FatherMotherthe darling Lamball 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

'Now,' said the Psammead cheerily, 'you are not particularly nice, nor particularly clever, and you're not at all

goodlooking. Still, you've saved my lifeoh, 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

'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 areand as long as you

'The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people unhappyjealousy, bad temper, pride,

disagreeableness, greediness, selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet was

'Of course I am,' retorted the Psammead tartly, 'so there's no need for you to.'

'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 batisn'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.'

'Then,' said Robert, 'we might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. Yesit IS bottle, and not bundle,

'Not at all,' said the Psammead briskly, 'you think you know everything, but you are quite mistaken. The

'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

'Well, thenall 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 dowell, several things.'

'Oh, THAT!' said Cyril, 'it's not reading. It looks like pictures of chickens and snakes and things.'

'I've no patience with you,' said the Psammead; 'if you can't read you must find some one who can. A priest

'We don't know any priests,' said Anthea; 'we know a clergymanhe's called a priest in the prayerbook,

you knowbut he only knows Greek and Latin and Hebrew, and this isn't any of thoseI know.'

'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 ironlooking ones toowe peeped in once when he was out. Old Nurse says he doesn't eat

'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

aidoh, yes, you'd better all go; you can put me to sand as you go upstairs. I must have a few minutes' peace

So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed their hairthis was Anthea's ideaand went up

to knock at the door of the 'poor learned gentleman', and to 'bind him with the chains of honour and upright

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

queershaped 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 spyglass sort of thing in one eyewhich 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 mummycasevery, very, very bigpainted in red and

yellow and green and black, and the face of it seemed to look at them quite angrily.

You know what a mummycase 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 topfloor 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

'Come in,' said the gentleman, risingwith 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 grownups,' whispered Robert, 'and he doesn't seem to know how many of us there are.'

'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

'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

'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

'Oh!' said Cyril blushing, 'but we only know them to look at, except Latinand I'm only in Caesar with that.'

The gentleman took off his spectacles and laughed. His laugh sounded rusty, Cyril thought, as though it

'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

'I'm afraid we didn't think about your liking to inspect it,' said the truthful Anthea. 'It was just for US because

'Oh, yesand, I say,' Robert interjected, 'you won't think it rude of us if we ask you first, before we show it,

'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 SammyI 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 gentlemanthough 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

The gentleman had put on his spectacles again and was looking at Cyril through them. He now said: 'Bless

Some faint memory of a faroff 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

'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

'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 spyglass 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

'We didn't find it. We bought it at a shop. Jacob Absalom the name isnot far from Charing Cross,' said

I ought to tell you that it is extremely valuableextraordinarily valuable, I may say.'

'Keep it carefully, then,' said the gentleman impressively; 'and if ever you should wish to part with it, may I

'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

'They aren't REALLY,' said Anthea earnestly. 'You'd see they aren't if I could tell you about our last summer

'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

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. Halfway down to the first landing she turned and ran up again.

The door was still open, and the learned gentleman and the mummycase were standing opposite to each

'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

She glanced at the mummycase; IT certainly did not look as though it would ever think of reminding people

'Thank you, my dear. It was a kindly thought. No, I haven't anyone to remind me about things like that.'

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

Anthea caught the others at the stairfoot. 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

The children and the Psammead crouched in a circle on the floorin the girls' bedroom, because in the

parlour they might have been interrupted by old Nurse's coming in to lay the cloth for teaand the charm

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 darkdarker 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

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.

But the light grew stronger. It was greeny, like glowworms' lamps, and it grew and grew till it was as

though thousands and thousands of glowworms 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

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

'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

'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.'

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

'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

'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

'I may not tell you. If you will choose a time, I will take you to the place that then held it. You yourselves

'When did you see it last?' asked Anthea'I mean, when was it taken away from you?'

'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

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

Everyone listened: and everyone tried to think. It is not easy to do this clearly when you have been listening

'Can you take us into the Pastto 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

'Well,' said Anthea, 'will you take us back to when there was a shrine and you were safe in itall of you?'

'Yes,' said the voice. 'You must hold me up, and speak the word of power, and one by one, beginning with the

firstborn, 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.'

'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.'

'Oh crikey!' exclaimed Robert, 'that's tea! Will you please make it proper daylight again so that we can go

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

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

Next morning Anthea got old Nurse to allow her to take up the 'poor learned gentleman's' breakfast. He did

'You see I'm wearing the charm round my neck,' she said; 'I'm taking care of itlike you told us to.'

'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 itit was

such a darling voiceand it told us the other half of it was lost in the Past, so of course we shall have to look

The learned gentleman rubbed his hair with both hands and looked anxiously at Anthea.

'I suppose it's naturalyouthful imagination and so forth,' he said. 'Yet someone must have ... Who told you

'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 thethethe

The learned gentleman smiled feebly and then frownednot a crossfrown, but a puzzlefrown.

'Thank you,' he said, 'I shall always be pleased if you'll look inany time you're passing you knowat least

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 fiftysecond chapter of his

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 dinnerbell would be able to reach back into the Past, and it seemed unwise to excite old Nurse's

curiosity when nothing they could saynot even the truthcould 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

'You can get yourselves some buns or spongecakes, or whatever you fancylike,' said old Nurse, giving

Cyril a shilling. 'Don't go getting jamtarts, nowso 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

The sun was shining very brightly, and even London looked pretty. Women were selling roses from big

basketsfull, and Anthea bought four roses, one each, for herself and the others. They were red roses and

smelt of summerthe kind of roses you always want so desperately at about Christmastime 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

'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?'

'You shall carry the Psammead if you like,' said Anthea. 'That is,' she added, remembering the beast's queer

'_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 fishbasket 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

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 Ringo'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 brownyyellowy

shining ribbon of a river. Then more dry, caked mud and more greenybrowny 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

It was. The air was hotter than they could have imagined, even in London in August.

'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

'And there's a riverhorse!' said the Psammead, as a great beast like an enormous slatyblue slug showed

'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

'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.'

'Don't be silly little duffers,' said the Psammead in its friendly, informal way; 'it's not a riverhorse. It's a

It was. It was a girlof 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

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.

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 muddleheaded 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

So when the girl said, 'Who are you?' everyone understood at once, and Anthea replied

'We are childrenjust 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

'Don't make your voice buzz like that, it tickles my ears,' it said rather crossly. 'You can always get back to

Anthea had a bangle on her arm. It was a sevenpennyhalfpenny 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 maidofallwork 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

The girl held out her hand. Anthea slid the bangle over it, and the girl's face lighted up with the joy of

'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

'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 thickgrowing acacia trees and shrubsmostly prickly and unpleasantlookingseemed about

half a mile across. The path was narrow and the wood dark. At last, ahead, daylight shone through the boughs

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, sandpeppered leaves. Away to the right was something that looked like a

greybrown hedge, and from beyond it blue smoke went up to the bluer sky. And over all the sun shone till

The Psammead ought to have been touched by this proof of confidence. Perhaps, however, it looked upon it

'OH,' whispered Anthea, 'dear Jane, don't! Think of Father and Mother and all of us getting our heart's desire.

'Besides,' said Cyril, in a low voice, 'the Psammead must know there's no danger or it wouldn't go. It's not so

As they got nearer to the browny fence they saw that it was a great hedge about eight feet high, made of

'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 spitefullooking, and within this was a sort of

There were no gardens and no roads. Just huts built of wood and twigs and clay, and roofed with great

palmleaves, dumped down anywhere. The doors of these houses were very low, like the doors of

dogkennels. The ground between them was not paths or streets, but just yellow sand trampled very hard and

In the middle of the village there was a hedge that enclosed what seemed to be a piece of ground about as big

No sooner were the children well within the inner thorn hedge than dozens of men and women and children

'They are wonderchildren from beyond the desert. They bring marvellous gifts, and I have said that it is

The children from London, where nothing now surprises anyone, had never before seen so many people look

They crowded round the children, touching their clothes, their shoes, the buttons on the boys' jackets, and the

'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 AngloSaxon or conquering race. Not that we want to conquer YOU,' he added hastily. 'We

only want to look at your houses and yourwell, at all you've got here, and then we shall return to our own

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 goatskin or deerskin,

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

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 hedgedround 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 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

'With other stones,' said the girl; 'the men make them; we have men of special skill in such work.'

'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

The girl showed them how the huts were madeindeed, 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

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

fishtrapjust 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

'It is really wonderful,' said Cyril patronizingly, 'when you consider that it's all eight thousand years ago'

'It ISN'T eight thousand years ago,' whispered Jane. 'It's NOWand 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'll give you this if you'll tell me,' said Anthea taking off a beadring 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

'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, woewoe! why did you ever come here?'

'Don't be frightened,' said Cyril. 'They shan't know. Jane, don't you be such a little jackape againthat'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 thornhedge.

His breath only served for that, and he lay panting on the ground. 'Oh, DO let's go home!' said Jane. 'Look

She held up the charm. Fortunately all the strange, fair people were too busy to notice HER. She held up the

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.'

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 allnor rise

The Psammead had crept out of the bassbag 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

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

thornbushes from the heap that seemed to have been piled there ready for just such a need. They lifted the

clusterthorns with long polesmuch as men at home, nowadays, lift hay with a fork.

Robert felt in his pocket for a toy pistol and loaded it with a pink paper cap. It was his only weapon.

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

'Look here!' she said. 'I think perhaps the Psammead is really arranging something for us. I don't believe it

'Nothing,' Cyril answered promptly, 'except keep our eyes and ears open. Look! That runner chap's getting his

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

'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

spearheads shine red like the sun. They are a terrible people, and their march is towards US. Having seen

'These are YOUR folk,' said the headman, turning suddenly and angrily on Cyril, 'you came as spies for

'We did NOT,' said Cyril indignantly. 'We wouldn't be spies for anything. I'm certain these people aren't a bit

'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.'

'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

The crowd dispersed, and nine men, wearing antelopeskins, 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

thingshippopotamus flesh, ostrichfeathers, 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 sealingwax, 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

The headman who took the things looked at them with awe, especially at the red roses and the

'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.'

'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

'Will that god whose image you hold in your hand speak to you alone, or shall I also hear it?' asked the man

'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 hedgedin space'speak with thy loud

He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, for it was a twoshilling pistol, and the caps

Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on the sand. The headman who had accepted the

'The voice has spoken,' he said. 'Lead them into the anteroom 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

The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the middle of the maze was roundroofed, and a

'Here you may wait,' said their guide, 'but do not dare to pass the curtain.' He himself passed it and

'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

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 firstclass worker in flint flakes and notches an

arrowhead or the edge of an axean advantage which no other person now alive has ever enjoyed. The

boys found the weapons most interesting. The arrowheads 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 lifepreservers in the days of the

Then there were long things like spears or lances, with flint kniveshorribly sharpand flint battleaxes.

Everyone in the village was so busy that the place was like an antheap when you have walked into it by

Quite suddenly all the air seemed to glow and grow redit 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 thereand 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

'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 sleepbut somehow, though they

were rather frightened now and then, the feeling was growing in themdeep down and almost hidden away,

but still growingthat 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.'

They were awakened by long, loud, terrible sounds that seemed to come from everywhere at oncehorrible

threatening shouts and shrieks and howls that sounded, as Cyril said later, like the voices of men thirsting for

'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

All night the terrible noise went on, but when the sun rose, as abruptly as he had set, the sound suddenly

The children had hardly time to be glad of this before a shower of javelins came hurtling over the great

thornhedge, 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

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

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

Cyril noticed that every now and then certain of the fightingmen would enter the maze, and come out with

'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

The fight raged across the thornhedge outside. Suddenly there was a loud and bitter cry.

'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

'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

'Well?' said a brisk voice, and the curtain of skins was lifted at one corner by a furry hand, and out peeped the

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

'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

'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

'Light another match, Robert,' said Anthea. 'Now, then quick! which is the East?'

'Oh! they'll tell you anything!' said the Psammead impatiently, getting into its bassbag and wrapping itself in

'How you do waste time!' the Psammead said. 'Why, the East's where the shrine is, of course. THERE!'

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

'Now, Jane,' said Cyril, very quickly. 'I'll take the Amulet, you stand ready to hold up the charm, and be sure

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.

He glared fiercely at the children, and the whites of his eyes were very white indeed. He had a wet, red

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,

bignosed face with the red, wet knife in its gleaming teeth. Within the arch was the dull, faint,

'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 Ringo'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.'

'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 twentyfour hours.' 'The buns are

quite soft still,' said Cyril, feeling one; 'I suppose the dew kept them fresh.'

'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

'Oh, bless me, child, I don't care! Please yourselves and you'll please me. Come in and get your dinners

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 twentyfour hoursall

'What's the matter? Don't you understand? You come back through the charmarch at the same time as you

'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

'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

maidofallwork, who had given her the bangle with the blue stone, to let her do it. And she stayed and

'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

'You are a most unusual little girl,' he said. 'Who tells you all these things?'

'Makebelieve,' he said slowly, as one who recalls and pronounces a longforgotten word.

'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 predynastic Egypt. Strange what tricks the mind will play! I shall have to

He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a mile walk before he went back to his work.

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 diningtable, and the walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hanging all round, and

The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. You know how it is donewith the largest

and best teatray 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

tiptop games that grownup people are so unjust toand old Nurse, though a brick in many respects, was

quite enough of a standard grownup 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

Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try another song. 'I'm sick to death of that,' said

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

'It ISN'T all,' said Cyril, saying much more than he meant because he thought Robert's tone had been

'We ought to go and look for that Amulet. What's the good of having a firstclass charm and keeping it idle,

'I'M game for anything, of course,' said Robert; but he added, with a fine air of chivalry, 'only I don't think the

'I am though,' said Jane heavily; 'I didn't like it, and I won't go there againnot for anything I won't.'

'We shouldn't go THERE again, silly,' said Cyril; 'it would be some other place.'

Seeing Jane so frightened, made the others feel quite brave. They said they were certain they ought to go.

'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,

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.

'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

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 beastsand I hate

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 chairleg absently. His feet were

always eloquent in moments of emotion. Anthea stood pleating the end of the tablecloth into foldsshe

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 Pussyyou know she's the youngest.'

'Well, said Cyril, who was subject to passing fits of justice, 'we began, you know. At least you did.' Cyril's

'I'm not going to say I'm sorry if you mean that,' said Robert, and the chairleg cracked to the kick he gave as

'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

Far away up the stairs a voice could be heard singing brokenly, but still defiantly

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

It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being the youngest was entitled to this ceremonial.

'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

illfeeling, 'and cranberriesthat'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

'No,' said Robert, 'at least Jane was singing "How many miles," but I shouldn't have thought you could have

'I did not hear ALL the words,' said the learned gentleman. 'I wonder would you recite them to me?'

'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

He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a faraway look in them, as though he could see through

'I say,' Cyril remarked abruptly. 'You know that charm we showed you, and you told us how to say the name

'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

'Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and throwing things about?' For she had read

'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.'

'I mean forstargazing and fortunetelling,' said the learned gentleman, 'and there were temples and

'I'll go to Babylon if you like,' said Jane abruptly, and the others hastened to say 'Done!' before she should

'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 aajolly game,' he went into

'He said "jolly" as if it was a foreign language,' said Cyril. 'Come on, let's get the Psammead and go now. I

So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bassbag 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

'We want to go to Babylon to look for the part of you that was lost. Will you please let us go there through

'Please put us down just outside,' said Jane hastily; 'and then if we don't like it we needn't go inside.'

So Anthea hastily uttered the word of power, without which the charm could do nothing.

'UrHekauSetcheh!' 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 chestofdrawers and the

Kidderminster carpet, and the washhandstand with the riveted willowpattern 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

The children found themselves under a whiteblossomed, greenleafed fruittree, in what seemed to be an

orchard of such trees, all whiteflowered and greenfoliaged. 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.

'Why, it's like home exactlyI mean Englandonly everything's bluer, and whiter, and greener, and the

The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane admitted that it was all very pretty.

'I don't know,' said Jane. 'I suppose the fruittrees 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

'Of course it isn't,' said Cyril. 'The hanging gardens are just gardens hung up_I_ think on chains between

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 gardeningwhich meant that he liked to watch the

gardener at workwas able to command the respect of the others by telling them the names of a good many

trees. There were nuttrees and almondtrees, and apricots, and figtrees with their big fivefingered leaves.

At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the other orchards. It had a low building in

'These are vines,' said Cyril superiorly, 'and I know this is a vineyard. I shouldn't wonder if there was a

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 highmore than half the height of St Paul'sand 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 steelblue 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

'Oh, yes; you know everything,' Robert replied. 'What's all that greygreen stuff you see away over there,

'All right,' said Cyril loftily, '_I_ don't want to tell you anything. I only thought you'd like to know a

And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and instantly a little crowd of a dozen or more

'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 workpeople had passed (they WERE workpeople, the children felt sure, because they were

dressed so plainlyjust one long blue shirt thingof 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.

Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into 'The British Grenadiers', and to its quickstep

This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in bright armour suddenly barred their way with

(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

'We come from very far,' said Cyril mechanically. 'From the Empire where the sun never sets, and we want to

'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

'The Queen,' said the gatekeeper, '(may she live for ever!) gives audience today three hours after sunrising.'

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 littlevillage.' He said it in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean the 'herring

'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?'

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 kindfaced woman sat

'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 peoplethere were

no black frockcoats 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 wantand for a great many things that if you wanted here and now, want would be your master.

There were pineapples and peaches in heapsand 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

'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 whitelike 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 manimages of men with wings like chain armour, and hawks' heads, and

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

All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of the Queen. Ladies in richlyembroidered

dresses with fringy flounces, poor folks in plain and simple clothes, dandies with beards oiled and curled.

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

'Oh! don't leave us,' said Jane. The woman was giving some last instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and

'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

'You needn't gawp like that,' Jane went on. 'I'm not going to be bothered with queens any more than IT is.

'She's right there,' said everyone, for they had observed that the Psammead had a way of knowing which side

She turned to the woman and said, 'You'll take me home with you, won't you? And let me play with your

And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, who took the woman's hand, and

The others stood looking after her till she, the woman, and the basket were lost in the manycoloured crowd.

So they took off the garments that the woman had lent them and stood amid the jostling petitioners of the

'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 doorporter spoke to a black

man, he spoke to someone else. There was a whispering, waiting pause. Then a big man, with a

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

'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 dreamlady, all gold and silver and jewels and snowy drift of veils,

'Don't be frightened, I really am SO glad you came! The land where the sun never sets! I am delighted to see

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

'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

Then Robert saw, and he murmured, 'Crikey!' at the foot of the throne of Babylon; while Cyril hoarsely

The Queen threw three of the red and gold embroidered cushions off the throne on to the marble steps that led

'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,

'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 myselfmuch 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

'Jane is my little sister. One of the guardsatthegate's wife is taking care of her. And scales are music.'

'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

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

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.'

'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 headat least Anthea thought so, but it

'They SAID it was for speaking evil of your Majesty,' said the woman, 'but it wasn't. Someone had a spite

'No one could,' said the woman simply, 'when they'd once seen your beautiful face.'

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

The people came to the Queen about all sorts of family quarrels and neighbourly misunderstandingsfrom a

fight between brothers over the division of an inheritance, to the dishonest and unfriendly conduct of a

woman who had borrowed a cookingpot 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 the children were left alone in the justicehall 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 shadeneeded, indeed, for already the sun was as hot as it is in England in August at the

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

'Not at all,' said she. 'RittiMarduk is a very clean man. And one has to have SOME ONE as taster, you

The word made the children feel rather creepy; but RittiMarduk had tasted all the cups, so they felt pretty

safe. The drink was deliciousvery cold, and tasting like lemonade and partly like penny ices.

'Leave us,' said the Queen. And all the Court ladies, in their beautiful, manyfolded, manycoloured, fringed

'NoyouCyril,' said Anthea. 'Don't you remember how pleased the Queen of India was when you told her

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 truthand all the truth that he had to tell. But now it was not easy

to tell a convincing story without mentioning the Amuletwhich, of course, it wouldn't have done to

mentionand without owning that they were really living in London, about 2,500 years later than the time

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

'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.

'RittiMarduk shall run down to the gates and find out which guard your sister went home with.'

'Might he'Anthea's voice was tremulous'might hewould it interfere with his mealtimes, or anything

'Of course he shall go now. He may think himself lucky if he gets his meals at any time,' said the Queen

'May I send a letter?' asked Cyril, pulling out a redbacked penny accountbook, and feeling in his pockets

'Oh, I can scribe right enough, thanks,' said Cyril, finding the pencil and licking its point. He even had to bite

Cyril wrote on a leaf of the bookit was of rough, woolly paper, with hairs that stuck out and would have

'Hide IT most carefully before you come here,' he wrote, 'and don't mention itand 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 aand like alike a festival; and that she need

RittiMarduk, who had come in and had stood waiting while Cyril wrote, his Babylonish eyes nearly starting

'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 asPeppermint!' he

'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.'

RittiMarduk went, seeming only partly satisfied; and then the Queen began to admire the penny

accountbook and the bit of pencil in so marked and significant a way that Cyril felt he could not do less than

'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

'You shall teach me later to say the great names,' she said. 'And the names of their Ministersperhaps the

'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 sureand 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 laterbecause of course you'll make us a nice long visit now you have come,

won't you? Now tell mebut no, I am quite tired out with your being so clever. Besides, I'm sure you'd like

'Excuse me, but you should say "the King mayheliveforever",' said the Queen gently.

'I beg your pardon,' Anthea hastened to say'the King mayheliveforever 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

'She means,' explained Robert, 'that English kings only have one wifeat least, Henry the Eighth had seven

'In our country,' said the Queen scornfully, 'a king would not reign a day who had only one wife. No one

'Of course they arepoor meanspirited things! I don't associate with them, of course, I am the Queen:

'But oh, my dears,' the Queen went on, 'such a todo as there's been about this last wife! You never did! It

really was TOO funny. We wanted an Egyptian princess. The King mayheliveforever 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

horsesquite 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 SunGod, 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

'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

'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, blackhaired thing is coming, and the King mayheliveforever 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 goldplated wheels and onyxstudded hubsmuch 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 broughtbeautiful 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

'Good gracious!' she cried, 'what a time we've slept! I must rush off and dress for the banquet. I shan't have

'Hasn't RittiMarduk 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.'

'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 lossJane, the Psammead, and the Amuletgave 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

'After all, she's with the Psammead, so SHE'S all right. The Psammead is jolly careful of itself too. And it

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

The middle of the room was left clear, and different people came and did amusing things. There were

conjurers and jugglers and snakecharmers, 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

'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 mayheliveforever is reward

And the King was so pleased with this modest and sensible reply that he gave her the gold collar off his own

'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 nowyou promised to sing us something. Would you like my minstrels

'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 Novemberwith penny horns, a

tin whistle, a teatray, 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

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

'More, more,' cried the King; 'by my beard, this savage music is a new thing. Sing again!'

Shouts of applause greeted the ending of the verse, and the King would not be satisfied till they had sung all

their partsongs (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!'

'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

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

Instantly, from nowhere as it seemed, sprang eight soldiers in bright armour inlaid with gold, and tunics of

'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.

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

'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 torchthat 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,

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

Adamand 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!'

'Oh, yes,' said the captain. 'I've got kids of my own too. But it doesn't do to let domestic sentiment interfere

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

'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

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

'Go to sleep,' said the gaoler, pointing to a heap of straw in a corner; 'tomorrow comes soon enough.'

'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,

'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.

'What was the name the Queen said?' asked Cyril suddenly. 'NisbethNesbitsomething? You know, the

'Wait a sec,' said Robert, 'though I don't know why you want it. NusrochNisrockNisrochthat's it.'

Then Anthea pulled herself together. All her muscles tightened, and the muscles of her mind and soul, if you

'UR HEKAU SETCHEH,' she cried in a fervent voice. 'Oh, Nisroch, servant of the Great Ones, come and

There was a waiting silence. Then a cold, blue light awoke in the corner where the straw wasand 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

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

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 waterlilies, 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,

'Walk forward without fear,' said Nisroch. 'Is there aught else that the Servant of the great Name can do for

'You are a dear,' cried Anthea, not in the least knowing what she was saying. 'Oh, thank you thank you. But

She caught the hand of the creature, and it was cold and hard in hers, like a hand of stone.

'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 awaybut thanks be to Dagon,

you've managed it for yourselves. You must get away. I'll wake my chief lady and she shall call

'Don't rouse anybody for goodness' sake,' said Anthea, 'except Jane, and I'll rouse her.'

'RittiMarduk 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

'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

'Hold It up, and say the word,' cried Cyril, catching up the Psammead, which mechanically bit him, but only

'Jane,' cried Cyril with great presence of mind, 'go and get the plate of sand down for the Psammead.'

'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

'Oh, yes,' said Cyril carelessly. 'It was jolly enough, of course, but I thought we'd been there long enough.

'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

'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

'Yes,' said Jane, 'RittiMarduk, he came for me just after the Psammead had bitten the guardofthegate'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 dearnot 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

'But,' it added, 'what possessed you to tell that Queen that I could give wishes? I sometimes think you were

The children did not know the meaning of rudimentary, but it sounded a rude, insulting word.

'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

'Then it's your fault,' said Robert, 'because you might just as well have made "soon" mean some moment next

'That's where you, as so often happens, make the mistake,' rejoined the Sandfairy. '_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.

'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

'Where's my priceless woven basket of sacred rushes?' asked the Psammead morosely. 'I can't go out with

And then everybody remembered with pain that the bass bag had, in the hurry of departure from Babylon, not

'But it's not so extra precious,' said Robert hastily. 'You can get them given to you for nothing if you buy fish

'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

And it went then and there to sand, which, as you know, meant to bed. The boys went to St James's Park to

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 fourleaved 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 itworked hastily but affectionately in chain stitch.

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 teatime, 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

'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

The others exchanged looks of silent rejoicing at the thought of their cleverness in having concealed from

'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

'Well, we needn't be in at that part, but Babylon was lovely! We had cream and sweet, sticky stuff. And I

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

The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, like that of a cat when you want to nurse it, and

'Oh, no, Nurse dear,' said Anthea; 'we're having a lovely time. We're just going off to see some old ancient

'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 teathings, and when she had swept up the crumbs and removed

the cloth, the Amulet was held up and the order givenjust as Duchesses (and other people) give it to their

'To Egypt, please!' said Anthea, when Cyril had uttered the wonderful Name of Power.

And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street diningroom, the Amulet grew big, and it was an arch, and through it

'What silly cuckoos we all are,' he said. 'Of course we can't go. We daren't leave home for a single 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.

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,

The stayathomes would have been much duller than they were but for the new interest taken in them by

He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of purple and gold beads.

'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

'I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,' said Anthea. 'I do have such interesting dreams about itat

'Do sit down and tell me,' said he. So she sat down and told. And he asked her a lot of questions, and she

'Wonderfulwonderful!' he said at last. 'One's heard of thoughttransference, 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

'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 thoughtreading, 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

The loud hum of many voices came through the open window. Words could be distinguished.

'This ain't November. That ain't no guy. It's a ballet lady, that's what it is.'

'What's she a saying of?' cried a dozen voices. 'Some blamed foreign lingo,' one voice replied.

In the middle of the crowd, plainly to be seen from the top of the steps, were the beautiful face and bright veil

'Here!' he cried, 'look outlet 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

'_I_ wish you'd come in a different dress, if you HAD to come,' said Robert; 'but it's no use my wishing

'No,' said the Queen. 'I wish I was dressedno, I don'tI wish THEY were dressed properly, then they

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 workingclasses 3,000 years ago in Babylonand there was not much

'Lawky me!' said the marrowselling woman, 'whatever could atook me to come out this figure?' and she

'Someone's made a pretty guy of youtalk 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 bootlaceseller. 'I wasn't quite myself last night, I'll

The crowd was all talking at once, and getting rather angry. But no one seemed to think of blaming the

Anthea bounded down the steps and pulled her up; the others followed, and the door was shut. 'Blowed if I

And the crowd, coming slowly to the same mind, dispersed, followed by another crowd of persons who were

'We shall have the police here directly,' said Anthea in the tones of despair. 'Oh, why did you come dressed

'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

'Oh, in THAT,' said the Queen disparagingly. 'I thought you'd done it with your own hands.'

'What a hideous city yours is,' the Queen went on pleasantly, 'and what horrid, ignorant people. Do you know

'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

'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

'Nobody's allowed to,' said Anthea in haste; 'but look here, we'll take you and show you anything you'd like to

seeanything 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

'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, lacetrimmed 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

'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 thirtyninth 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 pinkrosed 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.

The party had no umbrellas, and the only parcel was the bag containing the Psammead, which the Queen had

'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

swingdoor that always let out the wrong person, and she was herself almost asleep, and still the others did

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

'Now go,' said the nicest of the angry gentlemen. 'Take the poor, demented thing home and tell your parents

'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

The nicest gentleman nodded, and the officials stood round the Queen, the others forming a sort of guard

'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 herswould have them out of

the cases. Tried to break the glassshe 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.'

'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

'Do come home,' she said; 'the learned gentleman in our house has a much nicer necklace than anything

'My good child,' said the nice gentleman, 'what you're talking is not Babylonian, but nonsense. You just go

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

'I wish,' she said, very loud and clear, 'that all those Babylonian things would come out to me hereslowly,

'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

It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved stone, bricks, helmets, tools, weapons, fetters,

winejars, bowls, bottles, vases, jugs, saucers, seals, and the round long things, something like rolling pins

with marks on them like the print of little birdfeet, necklaces, collars, rings, armlets, earringsheaps 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

He rushed off to Fleet Street, and his paper got out a new edition within half an hour.

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

'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

'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

'If we had some money we could take her about in a cab. People wouldn't notice her so much then. But we

'They'd only think we'd stolen it,' said Cyril bitterly, 'and put us in prison.'

'The learned gentleman!' said Anthea, and ran up to him with the ring in her hand.

'Oh!' he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring into his hand. 'It's my very own,' said Anthea;

'I'll lend you a pound,' said the learned gentleman, 'with pleasure; and I'll take care of the ring for you. Who

'It'll be a pretty game if I don't get the money to pay for cabs for her,' said Anthea.

'This thoughttransference is more farreaching 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

'Yes,' said Anthea, 'heaps more. And the pound is the thing _I_ want more than anything on earth.'

'This thoughttransference!' he said. 'It's undoubtedly a Babylonian ringor 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.'

And now from the window of a fourwheeled 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

'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

Why don't their masters see that they're better fed and better clothed? Tell me in three words.'

No one answered. The wagesystem of modern England is a little difficult to explain in three words even if

'Oh, no,' said Cyril; 'you see they have votesthat makes them safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference.

'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

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,

beefsteak 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 Roadbrightened it up, so to speak, and brightened

'I wants my tea,' he said; and they saw that on the box of the cab was a mound of cabbage, with pork chops

'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.

The crowd round them thickened. They were in a narrow street where many gentlemen in black coats and

'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

The moment the almost fainting Psammead had blown itself out every man in Throgmorton Street appeared

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 impossiblelooking

'I say,' a youth who had always been fairhaired broke that silence, 'it's only fancy of coursesomething

'Rum,' said his friend. 'Look at YOU. You in a sash! My hat! And your hair's gone black and you've got a

'Old Levinstein don't look so bad. But how was it DONEthat's what I want to know. How was it done? Is it

'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 foodGOOT 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

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

'I only wish,' said the clerk who thought it was conjuringhe 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.'

'Scandalous! Shameful! Ought to be put down by law. Give her in charge. Fetch the police,' two or three

'What is it?' she asked. 'They sound like caged lionslions 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

'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

'It's a judgement on you, Rosy,' said his partner. 'I always said you were too hard in that matter of Flowerdew.

The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from the gleaming blades, the mailed figures,

But Throgmorton Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for them to get away as quickly as they

'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 twooh, 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 seveneights, 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

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 diningroom 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

'No,' said Cyril. 'She's thousands of years ago. But we spent a whole precious pound on her. It'll take all our

'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

'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

Anthea could not be too thankful that the Psammead was not there to grant his wish.

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 diningroom, in the firstfloor drawingroom,

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,

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 Discoboloswith a gold and white

saucer for the discwas standing on one foot, and under that one foot was the sheet.

Of course the Discobolos and his disc and the wouldbe 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

'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

'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 hotwater tap. It's what ballet girls do with their legs when they hurt them. I

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.

'Not metoo hot,' said Cyril. 'It's about as much as I can stand herelet 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 thereand we might get our fingers frostbitten so that we could never

'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 thoughttransference is just simply twaddle. You've been

'I wish you'd go to Atlantis some time, while we're about it, so as to give me some tips for my Nineteenth

'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 stairsa stout, prosperous, big man. The

'Hullo, Kiddies,' he said, glancing at the bandages on the head of Cyril and the hand of Robert, 'been in the

'It's all right,' said Cyril. 'I say, what was that Atlantic place you wanted him to go to? We couldn't help

'Atlantis,' said the visitor, 'the lost Atlantis, garden of the Hesperides. Great continentdisappeared in the

'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

'Let's go to Atlantis and take the learned gentleman with us,' said Anthea; 'he'll think it's a dream, afterwards,

'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

'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.

'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

'It doesn't take any time,' said Cyril; 'time is only a mode of thought, you know, and you've got to go some

'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.

But already the Amulet had grown to a great arch. Cyril pushed the learned gentleman, as undoubtedly the

firstborn, through the archnot 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 quayside. The rings and the chains were of a metal that

Everyone on the ship seemed too busy at first to notice the group of newcomers from Fitzroy Street. Those

They stood and looked across the wide quay to the town that rose beyond it. What they saw was the most

The blue sea sparkled in soft sunlight; little whitecapped 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 goldenred 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

Broad and magnificent flights of marble stairs led up from the quay to a sort of terrace that seemed to run

'I say, Mrwhat's your name,' said Robert. 'He means,' said Anthea, with gentle politeness, 'that we never

'When I was your age I was called Jimmy,' he said timidly. 'Would you mind? I should feel more at home in a

'Thank youJimmy,' said Anthea with an effort. It seemed such a cheek to be saying Jimmy to a grownup

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

'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

'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

'A recordsomething 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.

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

The Captain repeated, 'Jijimmy. Will you land?' he added. 'And shall I lead you to the Kings?'

'Our Kings are ten,' said the Captain, 'and the Royal line, unbroken from Poseidon, the father of us all, has the

'Then lead on, please,' said Robert, 'though I SHOULD like to see all over your beautiful ship, and sail about

'That shall be later,' said the Captain; 'just now we're afraid of a stormdo 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.'

There was a rather anxious pause; then the Captain stepped on to the quay, and the others followed him.

'Do talk to himJimmy,' said Anthea as they went; 'you can find out all sorts of things for your friend's

'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 upto be kind to strangers,' Anthea whispered

There were no horses or chariots in the street, but there were handcarts and low trolleys running on thick

logwheels, 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

The people in the streets kept crowding round them as they went along, but the Captain always dispersed the

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,

'The temples are covered with gold, of course,' answered the Captain, 'but the houses are only oricalchum. It's

'Don't be frightened,' said Anthea; 'we can get home in a minute, just by holding up the charm. Would you

'The High Jijimmy 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

He stopped at the gate of a great enclosure. It seemed to be a sort of park, for trees showed high above its

The party waited, and almost at once the Captain came back with one of the hairy elephants and begged them

It was a glorious ride. The elephant at the Zooto 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,

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

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.'

'At least, of course, it's not gold; it's orwhat'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 boiledlooking, 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,

'I know a little of those nations, however,' said he, 'and I quite agree with you. A most discerning

remarkmy dear,' he added awkwardly; 'this city certainly seems to indicate a far higher level of civilization

'Follow me,' said the Captain. 'Now, boys, get out of the way.' He pushed through a little crowd of boys who

'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

'Behold the Temples of Poseidon,' said the Captain. 'It is not lawful for me to enter. I will await your return

He told them what they ought to say, and the five people from Fitzroy Street took hands and went forward.

'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 whiterobed man

'Jijimmy,' 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 Poseidondoes

'Quite,' said the learned gentleman. 'It's very odd I can understand what you say to them, but not what they

In an inner courtyard stood the Templeall 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

'The ten Kings are even now choosing the bull. It is not lawful for me to behold,' said the priest, and fell face

The roof was of ivory adorned with the three precious metals, and the walls were lined with the favourite

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

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

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

'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 thundervoice.

But all that's happened so often before. If anything could make ME uneasy it wouldn't be THAT.'

'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

'What do you call this country?' asked the Psammead, suddenly putting its head out of its bag.

'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.

'There he isbelow,' said the priest, who had come with them. 'Your High Jijimmy is with the Kings.'

The ten Kings were no longer alone. The learned gentlemanno one had noticed how he got therestood

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 seathe sea!'

'Be calm,' said the most kingly of the Kings, he who had lassoed the bull. 'Our town is strong against the

'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 seacaptain edging his way out from among the people. And his

'To the hills!' he cried in a loud and terrible voice. And above his voice came another voice, louder, more

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 mountaina wave rising higher and higher till

suddenly it seemed to break in twoone half of it rushed out to sea again; the other

'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

'Oh, yes, yes!' said Jane, and the boys were readybut the learned gentleman had not come.

The others followed him. They found themselves in a sort of turretroofed, 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

'Come home,' cried the Psammead; 'THAT'S the LAST, I know it is! That's the lastover there.' It pointed

'You'll never see anything else if you do,' said Cyril. 'Oh, JIMMY!' appealed Anthea. 'I'll NEVER bring you

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

pumicestone 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

'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

And as Jane said it the Psammead leaped from its bag and bit the hand of the learned gentleman.

He turned to look back, and through the arch he saw nothing but a waste of waters, with above it the peak of

'What a ghastly dream!' he gasped. 'Oh, you're here, myerdears. Can I do anything for you?'

'Never again,' said the Psammead later on, 'will I go into the Past with a grownup person! I will say for you

'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

'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

'Mr Jijimmy's friend will have something worth having to put in his article now,' said Cyril very much later

'Not he,' said Robert sleepily. 'The learned Jijimmy will think it's a dream, and it's ten to one he never tells

Robert was quite right on both points. The learned gentleman did. And he never did.

A great city swept away by the sea, a beautiful country devastated by an active volcanothese 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

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

He had ceased to talk about thoughttransference. 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.

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

The children let it sleep. The danger of taking it about among strange people who might at any moment utter

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 steamerand 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

The breathlessness caused by Atlantis was wearing off a little. Cyril, who always wanted to understand all

'I'm not; I'm only thinking,' he answered when Robert asked him what he was so grumpy about. 'I'll tell you

'Nobody asked you to,' retorted Cyril mildly, 'and I haven't finished my inside thinking about it yet. Let's go

'I want to see the palms there,' said Anthea hastily, 'to see if they're anything like the ones on the island where

All disagreeableness was swept away in a pleasant tide of recollections, and 'Do you remember ...?' they said.

'My hat!' remarked Cyril pensively, as the flood of reminiscence ebbed a little; 'we have had some times.'

'That's what I was thinking about,' Cyril replied; and just then they heard the Little Black Girl sniff. She was

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 blackribboned

sailor hat that would have fitted a much bigger head than her little flaxen one. And she stood looking at the

'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.

'Can't we take you home?' said Anthea; and Jane added, 'Where does your mother live?'

'She don't live nowheresshe's deadso 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 hunchedup

'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 child was now only crying part of the time; the rest of the time she seemed to be talking to Anthea.

'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 Shrobsallthat's a landlady that's been kindand 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?'

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

mummycase appeared to smile as if in its distant superior ancient Egyptian way it were rather pleased to see

Anthea sat on the stairs with Imogen, who was nine come next November, while the others went in and

'It really does seem rather rough luck,' Cyril concluded, 'because I've often heard about rich people who

wanted children most awfullythough I know _I_ never shouldbut they do. There must be somebody

'Gipsies are awfully fond of children,' Robert hopefully said. 'They're always stealing them. Perhaps they'd

'She's quite a nice little girl really,' Jane added; 'she was only rude at first because we looked jolly and happy,

'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.

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

'Yes, I wish we could find a home where they would be glad to have her,' and instantly she felt the Psammead

She jumped up lifting the Psammead in her skirt, and holding Imogen by the hand, rushed into the learned

The circle was like that formed for the Mulberry Bush or Ringo'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

There was a moment of suspense; then came that curious upsidedown, insideout sensation which one

almost always feels when transported from one place to another by magic. Also there was that dizzy dimness

The mist cleared, the upsidedown, insideout 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 mummycase, were tall dark green trees, oaks and ashes, and in between

the trees and under them tangled bushes and creeping ivy. There were beechtrees too, but there was nothing

under them but their own dead red drifted leaves, and here and there a delicate green fernfrond.

And there they stood in a circle still holding hands, as though they were playing Ringo'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

'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.

'About the year fiftyfive 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 beforeit's very little changed.' 'Yes, but

'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 upgracious knows how.

In Megatherium days properly broughtup 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

'I see we are,' said Anthea patiently, looking round on the tall gloom of the forest. 'But why HERE? Why

'You don't suppose anyone would want a child like that in YOUR timesin 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

'And bringing me here without any waterproof or anything,' said the Psammead still more crossly, 'when

'Here, take my coat,' said Robert, taking it off. Anthea spread the coat on the ground and, putting the

'There,' she said comfortingly. 'Now if it does begin to look like rain, I can cover you up in a minute. Now

The others who had stopped holding hands crowded round to hear the answer to this question. Imogen

'Do?' replied the Psammead. 'I don't care what you do!' And it drew head and ears into the tweed covering of

'It's only a dream,' said the learned gentleman hopefully; 'something is sure to happen if we can prevent

The brooding silence of the dark forest was broken by the laughter of children and the sound of voices.

'It's only a dream,' said the learned gentleman to Jane, who hung back; 'if you don't go with the tide of a

There was a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a silly person's idea of a path. They went along

Quite soon they came to a large clearing in the forest. There were a number of houseshuts perhaps you

Some children, with no clothes on at all, were playing what looked like Ringo'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 beastskins 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

'Look,' she said, 'that one thereshe's precious like mother; mother's 'air was somethink lovely, when she 'ad

time to comb it out. Mother wouldn't never abeat me if she'd lived 'ereI don't suppose there's e'er a public

In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the forest. The sadeyed woman saw her. She

stood up, her thin face lighted up with a radiance like sunrise, her long, lean arms stretched towards the

'Imogen!' she criedat 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

'Oh, it IS motherit IS!' cried ImogenfromLondon, and rushed across the cleared space. She and her

mother clung togetherso closely, so strongly that they stood an instant like a statue carved in stone.

'Oh it is! And she wasn't eaten by wolves. She's come back to me. Tell me, my darling, how did you escape?

'Poor child!' whispered the women who crowded round, 'the terror of the wolves has turned her brain.'

'You wished to come where someone wanted the child,' said the Psammead. 'The child says this is her

'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

'If only all the children that no one wants,' began the learned gentlemanbut the woman interrupted. She

'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

I wish you could have seen all the honours and kindnesses lavished on the children and the learned gentleman

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

'I think you children have some wonderful influence on me,' said the learned gentleman. 'I never dreamed

It was when they were alone that night under the stars where the Britons had spread a heap Of dried fern for

'Well,' he said, 'we've made it all right for Imogen, and had a jolly good time. I vote we get home again before

'Why, Julius Caesar, you little goat,' replied her kind brother. 'Don't you see that if this is the year fiftyfive,

'So I doin the history. But that's different from being killed by his soldiers.'

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 wishgiving, 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 Britaineveryone 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 heardin

rather a strange accent, but quite intelligiblythe lips of Caesar speaking in the Latin tongue, and in that

'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

'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 thingsSt Paul's, and the Tower of

Caesar looked at the children a moment in silence. Then he called a soldier and spoke with him apart. Then

'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 girlchild 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

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

The learned gentleman insisted that the whole thing was a dream, and refused to talk much, on the ground

Jane, closely questioned, was full of information about railways, electric lights, balloons, menofwar,

'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

twoshilling 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

'But it's all nonsense,' said Anthea. 'Britain is just a savage sort of islandall 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.'

'All Jane's been telling you is what it's going to be,' Anthea interrupted, 'hundreds and hundreds of years from

'The little one is a prophetess, eh?' said Caesar, with a whimsical look. 'Rather young for the business, isn't

'You can call her a prophetess if you like,' said Cyril, 'but what Anthea says is true.'

'Very likely,' said Cyril, worriedly. 'I say, I do wish you'd give up this idea of conquering Britain. It's not

'On the contrary,' said Caesar, 'what you've told me has decided me to go, if it's only to find out what Britain

'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

It is a curious fact that when Caesar was encamped on the coast of Gaulsomewhere near Boulogne it was, I

believehe 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

'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 threecornered 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

'And if you hadn't told Caesar all that about how things are now, he'd never have invaded Britain,' said Robert

'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.

'It CAN'T!' said Anthea stoutly, 'the present's the present and the past's the past.'

'When we were in the Past the present was the future. Now then!' he added triumphantly.

'Yes, we didn't get much for our moneybut 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

'It's not a bad idea,' said the Psammead sleepily, putting its head out of its bag and taking it in again suddenly,

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 watercistern 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

'I didn't know you were waxy. I thought you'd just hurt your fingers with the tap again like you did last week,'

'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?'

'What's the matter with Mother?' asked Cyril, with apparent want of sympathy. 'She was all right in her letter

'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 childthe 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 awayoh, oh,

'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 doorkey 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

'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

nowWORK 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 THINKOh, bother the soap!' The greylined 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

'You'd have had to do that anyway,' said Cyril with conviction. 'Now, my idea's this. You know

'Well, they always take the savages beads and brandy, and stays, and hats, and braces, and really useful

thingsthings 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 pocketbook? Well, we'll take things like that. And offer them in

'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

'It wouldn't be stealing, would it?' said Anthea thoughtfully, 'because it will be such an awfully long time ago

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

'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 teaservice, 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 glovebuttoner. 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 tinopener, a tieclip, and a tennis ball, and a padlockno

key. Robert collected a candle ('I don't suppose they ever saw a selffitting paraffin one,' he said), a penny

Japanese pintray, a rubber stamp with his father's name and address on it, and a piece of putty.

Jane added a keyring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held coldcream, a smoked pearl button off

'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.

'Look here, let's each be blindfolded and reach out, and the first thing you touch you stick to.'

'Never mind,' said Anthea. 'I believe it's luckier not to really choose. In the stories it's always the thing the

woodcutter'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

'Nor yet me,' said Robert. 'It's always the end of the adventures when it comes to the marriage hands.'

'It IS Egypt we're going to, isn't it?nice Egypt?' said Jane. 'I won't go anywhere I don't know aboutlike

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

As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang in their ears. They went suddenly from the

quiet of Fitzroy Street diningroom 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 paintbox. 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 alreadyblack 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 clothingfor they were the working peopleand 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.

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, copperycoloured 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.

'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 midday 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 anotherfirst 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

The crowd swept through the streets of dulllooking 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,

'What's the trouble now?' a languid, largeeyed lady in a crimped, halftransparent linen dress, with her black

'Oh, the workingmendiscontented 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 dateseller.

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

'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 crimpedlinendressed lady; 'that's a blessing! And did you notice the Captain

The four children had taken advantage of the moment's pause before the crowd turned to fly, to edge

'Yes,' said Anthea, 'but I do wish the poor men hadn't been driven back before they could get to the King. He

'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

'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 doorkeeperwe might

give him the padlock or something. I wonder which are temples and which are palaces,' Robert added,

glancing across the marketplace 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

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.

'Tell me your mission,' said the young man. 'I am a divine father of the Temple of Amen Ra and perhaps I can

'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, outoftheway 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.

'We HAVE got some gifts,' said Cyril with equal caution. 'You see there's magic mixed up in it. So we can't

'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

'Do you need no preparationno 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

'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

'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

This idea seemed goodat least it was better than any other which at that moment occurred to anybody, so

The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the priest explained, were built within walls twenty

to twentyfive feet high, and such windows as showed in the walls were very high up. The tops of

palmtrees showed above the walls. The poor people's houses were little square huts with a door and two

'The poor Egyptians haven't improved so very much in their building since the first time we came to Egypt,'

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 palmleaves with snorts and headtossings of delight. Over every house door was some sort of figure or

'I don't think much of your "nice Egypt",' Robert whispered to Jane; 'it's simply not a patch on Babylon.'

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

'The guardchamber, the storehouses, 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

'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

'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

All round the hall were pillars of painted wood. The roof was of cedar, gorgeously inlaid. About halfway 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,

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

'Who are these strangers?' Pharaoh asked, and added very crossly, 'And what do you mean, Rekhmara, by

'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.'

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 tieclip. 'But it's not tribute all the same,' Cyril muttered. 'England

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 Rekhmara?'

'... of a vile and conquered nation, can make fire to spring from dry woodin the sight of all.'

'I should jolly well like to see them do it,' said Pharaoh, just as the priest had done.

'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 midday rest. If the people had

'A rudespoken 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.'

'You will be the idol of the people,' Rekhmara whispered joyously; 'the Temple of Amen will not contain

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

'Oh, greatest of all, before whom sun and moon and stars bow down,' said Rekhmara insinuatingly, 'am I

'As plain as it ever will be, I daresay,' said Pharaoh shortly. 'Get along with you. You are pardoned. Go in

'Seize it,' said Pharaoh carelessly. 'A very curious monkey. It will be a nice little novelty for my wild beast

And instantly, the entreaties of the children availing as little as the bites of the Psammead, though both bites

'Oh, DO be careful!' cried Anthea. 'At least keep it dry! Keep it in its sacred house!'

'You've no right to take it away,' cried Jane incautiously. 'It's a shame, a barefaced robbery, that's what it is!'

'Take the sacred house of the beast from them,' he said, 'and imprison all. Tonight after supper it may be our

'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.

'I thought we should play ball with queens,' sobbed Jane, 'and have no end of larks! And now everything's

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

'Wait a sec. I've got an idea,' said Cyril. He pondered for a few moments. Then he began hammering on the

'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?'

'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

'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

'We can do much more wonderful things than thatoh, ever so much,' said Anthea persuasively, 'if we only

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

'I say,' said Anthea, struck by a sudden thought, 'I suppose it'll be all right about those workmen? The King

'Oh, no,' said the soldier, 'you see, he's rather afraid of magic. He'll keep to his word right enough.'

'Ah, DO get us the monkey, and then you'll see some lovely magic. Dothere'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

'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

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

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

But the time went slowly, and everyone had time to think of how Pharaoh had said, 'Don't torture

'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

'I couldn't bear to go without it,' said Anthea, 'and Pharaoh said "After supper", that won't be just yet. And the

All the same, the sounds of the door being unbarred seemed one of the prettiest sounds possible.

But that doubt was set at rest by the Psammead itself; for almost before the door was open it sprang through

'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

At the word 'WISH' the children knew that the Psammead would attend to THAT bit of magic. It did, and the

'Any other little trick?' asked Cyril loftily. 'Shall we become invisible? Vanish?'

'No! no!' cried a voice high up among the tops of the tall wooden pillars that stood against the wall. There

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

The children went through the arch with a quickness born of long practice. But Jane stayed in the middle of

The others, standing on the diningroom carpet in Fitzroy Street, turned and saw her still in the arch.

But they pulled at Jane's hands just to see if she would come, and, of course, she did come.

'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.'

'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 itif by 'it' Jane meant the adventure of the Priest and

'Look here, said Cyril, sitting on the diningtable and swinging his legs; 'I really have got it.'

Cyril was making a boat with a penknife and a piece of wood, and the girls were making warm frocks for

'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 asas 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

'A bottle of hayI know,' interrupted Robert; 'but if we don't go on doing that, what ARE we to do?'

Old Nurse had come in with the tray of knives, forks, and glasses, and was getting the tablecloth and

'And a nice interesting handful YOU'D be, Master Cyril,' said old Nurse, 'if I wasn't to bring your meals up to

'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

'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.

'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 adying, his last

words to me was, "Maria, you was always a good cook!"' She ended with a trembling voice.

'I know exactly how she feels. Now, look here! Let's do a penance to show we're sorry we didn't think about

'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 sorrypresent,' 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

The others would have been ashamed not to agree, so they did. It was not till quite near the end of

dinnermutton fritters and blackberry and apple piethat out of the earnest talk of the four came an idea

Cyril and Robert went out with the taste of apple still in their mouths and the purple of blackberries on their

lipsand, in the case of Robert, on the wristband as welland bought a big sheet of cardboard at the

stationers. Then at the plumber's shop, that has tubes and pipes and taps and gasfittings 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

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:

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,

'Well, then,' said Cyril in a great hurry, rubbing at his gluey hands with his pocket handkerchief. 'What I

'Look here,' he said, 'what I really mean iswe can remember now what we did when we went to look for

'Yesunless we've been made fools of by the Psammead. So then, where we want to go to is where we shall

'_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 futureafter we've found the Amulet'

'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 timeand then we shall remember HOW we found it.

'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.'

'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 Amulettheir own half of

it, as well as the other half they had never been able to findand the two were joined by a pin of red stone

'No,' said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of Babylon had found it to get anything out of the

glass cases in the Museumexcept by Psammead magic, and then she hadn't been able to take anything

'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 sumsor instead of. It would be some use having an Amulet

'I wonder how far we are in the future,' said Anthea; the Museum looks just the same, only lighter and

'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

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

'How is it you're not at school?' asked the kind man in blue. 'Not expelled for long I hope?'

'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

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 rosecovered. 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 playingwith very little on indeed. Men, as well as women,

'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

Japaneselooking 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, lookedI hope they did not stareat 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

And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no one seemed to be anxious, or fretted,

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

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,

'II 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

'I don't quite understand,' said Anthea, gently. The boy lifted his face, rolled over, and sat up .

'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 grownups do it they're fined. When we do it we're expelled for the whole day.'

'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

'Nobody ishardly. 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

'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 tornup paper.'

'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

'Look here,' said the child, jumping up, 'it's nearly four. The expelledness only lasts till then. Come home

'I don't understand,' said the child, settling his leather belt over his honeycoloured smock and stepping out

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 little boy brought them to a house, and at the window was a good, bright motherface. The little boy

rushed in, and through the window they could see him hugging his mother, then his eager lips moving and his

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 Easternlooking 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

'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

'Hotair pipes, of course,' said the lady. 'Why, how could you have a fire in a nursery? A child might get

'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.'

'What a frightful place you must live in!' she said. 'What's all the furniture padded for?' Anthea asked, hastily

'Why, you couldn't have little tots of two or three running about in rooms where the things were hard and

Robert fingered the scar on his forehead where he had hit it against the nursery fender when he was little.

'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

'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

'You must have been reading very oldfashioned 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.'

'Why, we're all working people,' said the lady; 'at least my husband's a carpenter.'

'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 pretendingjust 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

'That's only the very beginning, of course,' said the lady; 'there are heaps more rhymes. There's the one

'And "things to eat" reminds meare you hungry? Wells, run and get a tray of nice things.'

'It's after the great reformersurely 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

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.'

'Look here,' said Anthea suddenly, 'would you like to come to OUR country, and see what it's like? It

'What a splendid conjuring trick!' cried the lady, enchanted with the beautiful, growing arch.

The lady went, laughing. But she did not laugh when she found herself, suddenly, in the diningroom at

She ran to the window and looked out. The sky was grey, the street was foggy, a dismal organgrinder 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?'

'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 magiclantern trick, I suppose, like I've read of. But DO stop it. Oh! their poor,

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 would like to take up the Duties of Citizenship for a special subject,' said Cyril. 'I wonder if Father could

'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

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 mummycase. 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

'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.'

'If you weren't just a dream,' he answered, smiling, you'd remember that you gave it to me.'

'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

The children saw four grownup people's portraitstwo ladies, two gentlemenand looked on them with

'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'sit's being so sudden makes it seem so frightful

The learned gentleman was looking at them with wistful kindness. 'Don't let me undream you just yet,' he

'You know, or you would if you weren't a dream, that it was on the 3rd December, 1905. I shall never forget

'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

knowI 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;

'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

'That was the beginning. But after you'd given me the whole of the Amuletah, 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 likeI don't knowmore like memories. I KNOW

'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 gardenI dig in it sometimes;

you remember, you used to tell me to take more exercise? Well, I feel I owe it all to youand the Amulet.'

'It isn't exactly a dream,' said Anthea softly, 'it's all part of the Amuletit's a sort of extra special, real dream,

'Ah,' said he, 'when you call me that, I know I'm dreaming. My little sisterI 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

'Come!' she cried, 'oh, come home! She may be dead before we get there, and then we can't give it to her. Oh,

'When it comes to people dying,' said Robert, 'goodbye! 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

'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

She put the tray down and hugged the girls in turn. The boys thumped her on the back with heartfelt

'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

'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

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

'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

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.

'Goodnight, bless your loving heart,' said old Nurse, 'if only you don't catch your deathercold!'

'Not always they don't,' said Cyril, 'it has to be crimson lake and Prussian blue. If you mix Vermilion and

'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 paintbox, and had supplemented the gift with a pile of old copies

'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

'_I_ shouldn't like to mix anything with a live lobster,' said Anthea, shuddering.

'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

'You think everything's true if it's printed,' said Cyril, naturally annoyed, 'but it isn't. Father said so. Quite a

'You see, as it happens,' said Robert, in what was really a rather annoying tone, 'it wasn't a newspaper, it was

'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

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 Pastbut somewhere

Next moment everyone felt a queer rocking and swayingsomething 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

'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

'A sort of magic,' said Robert carelessly. The Captain fingered an Amulet that hung round his neck.

'Tyre, of course,' said the man. Then he drew back and spoke in a low voice to one of the sailors.

'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

'Ohlook, look!' cried Anthea suddenly. On the bare breast of one of the sailors gleamed something red. It

'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'sand Robert and the others had no longer any doubt as

to where they had seen him before. It was Rekhmara, the priest who had led them to the palace of

Pharaohand whom Jane had looked back at through the arch, when he was counselling Pharaoh's guard to

Jane voiced the feelings of all when she said, fingering THEIR Amulet through the folds of her frock, 'We

For the moment nothing worse happened than an offer of foodfigs and cucumbers it was, and very

'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

'Let's go home,' Jane whispered, 'all the frogs are drowning NOW. I think the people here are cruel.'

'It's just like eelpots and lobsterpots,' said Cyril, 'the baskets only open from outsideI vote we stay.'

'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

'That's part of Tyre, too,' said the Captain; 'it's where the great merchants have their pleasurehouses and

A ship in full sail was passing swiftly through the fishing fleet. The Captain's face changed. He frowned, and

'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

'I'm sure we beg your pardon,' said Anthea hastily. 'In our country we say "little" for a pet name. Your wife

'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, secondbest 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

'You MUST be barbarians from the outer darkness,' said the Captain scornfully. 'All wealthy nations know

that our finest stuffs are twice dyeddibaptha. They're only for the robes of kings and priests and princes.'

'What do the rich merchants wear,' asked Jane, with interest, 'in the pleasurehouses?'

'Oh, don't be cross, we do so like hearing about things. We want to know ALL about the dyeing,' said Anthea

'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

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

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

'Yes,' he answered, 'this is the dyefish. It's a sort of murexand 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'

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.

'I should think so,' said the skipper. 'The pearldivers of Persia are not more skilful. Why, we've got a

freshwater spring that comes out at the bottom of the sea. Our divers dive down and bring up the fresh water

'I suppose not,' said Robert, and put away a wild desire to explain to the Captain the English system of

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.

'To Pheles, the great seacaptain, said the skipper, 'the man I told you of, who loves barbarians.'

'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

'Nonsenseas long as he's with us we've got some chance of the Amulet. We can always fly if anything goes

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 gateit was not arched, but roofed over with a great flat

stoneand 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 yellowishwhite liquid of a creamy consistency, and it smelt more strongly of garlic than garlic

While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works the Egyptian came close to the children,

'You feel,' said the Egyptian, 'that I want your Amulet. That makes you distrust me.'

'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

Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him the dyemaster. 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.

'My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He's at his garden houseunless he's hunting wild

'Ah,' said the skipper, 'he's a trueborn Phoenician. "Tyre, Tyre for ever! Oh, Tyre rules the waves!" as the

'I should,' said the dyemaster. 'They are very rum, aren't they? What frightful clothes, and what a lot of

Robert could not help thinking how easy, and at the same time pleasant, it would be to catch hold of the

dyemaster's feet and tip him backward into the great sunken vat just near him. But if he had, flight would

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 countrypalms and figs and cedars all

about. It was like a gardenclematis, honeysuckle, and jasmine clung about the olive and mulberry trees,

and there were tulips and gladiolus, and clumps of mandrake, which has bellflowers 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 bungalowlong and low, with pillars all along the front. Cedars and sycamores

'Why is this like Rosherville?' whispered Robert, and instantly supplied the answer.

'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

The children were left alone in a large hall. The floor was mosaic, done with wonderful pictures of ships and

seabeasts and fishes. Through an open doorway they could see a pleasant courtyard with flowers.

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

'Yes,' he said, 'my steward will pay you the price. But I shall not pay at that high rate for the Egyptian dog.'

'Our present position,' said Rekhmara. '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

The children were treated more as guests than as slaves, but the Egyptian was sent to the kitchen and made to

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

'I do like being a slave,' remarked Jane cheerfully, as they curled up on the big, soft cushions that were to be

It was black night when they were awakened, each by a hand passed softly over its face, and a low voice that

'It's me, Rekhmara, 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

'We can go after him,' said Cyril, leaping up; 'but he might take OURS as well; or he might be angry with us

There in the deep blackness of that room in the Tyrian country house the Amulet was once more held up and

All passed through on to a ship that tossed and tumbled on a windblown sea. They crouched together there

till morning, and Jane and Cyril were not at all well. When the dawn showed, dovecoloured, across the

steely waves, they stood up as well as they could for the tumbling of the ship. Pheles, that hardy sailor and

'Master,' said the Egyptian, bowing low, and that was even more difficult than standing up, 'we are here by

'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

He spoke in quite a new voice, and seemed to respect both the children and the Amulet a good deal more than

'Yes,' answered Pheles, 'he bade me set sail with half a score brave gentlemen and this crew. You shall go

'What are we going to do now?' said Robert, when Pheles had caused them to be left along with a breakfast of

'Wait till he lands in the Tin Isles,' said Rekhmara, '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.

'A year of THIS?' cried Jane, and Cyril, who was still feeling far too unwell to care about breakfast, hugged

'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 donethe work of a momentand 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. Weatherworn 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

'Ha!' he cried, 'the charm has brought you back! I have prayed to it daily these nine monthsand now you

'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 Tyrethe place of the Tin Islands.

If I could steer by night I could escape them yet, but tonight there will be no stars.'

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 sealingwax.

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

The dusk deepened, and Pheles, crouched beside a dim lantern, steered by the shilling compass from the

No one ever knew how the other ship sailed, but suddenly, in the deep night, the lookout man at the stern

'And we,' said Pheles, 'are close to the harbour.' He was silent a moment, then suddenly he altered the ship's

'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

'Never!' cried the halfdozen men near him. The slaves were rowing hard below and could not hear his

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 slavesand slaves they shall be to uswhen we live again. Tyre, Tyre for

'Quick, the Amulet,' cried Anthea, and held it up. Rekhmara 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

'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 gentlemenadventurers who went to their deaths singing, for the sake of

'And so we've lost the other half of the Amulet again,' said Anthea, when they had told the Psammead all

'Nonsense, pooh!' said the Psammead. 'That wasn't the other half. It was the same half that you've gotthe

'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

'I don't,' said the Psammead. 'You said, "Take us where YOU are"and it did, so you see it was the same

'But you mark my words,' the Psammead went on, 'you'll have trouble with that Priest yet.'

'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

'Of course we'll do as you say,' said Anthea soothingly, 'though there's something about his face that I really

'Still, you don't want to run after him, I suppose,' snapped the Psammead. 'You wait till the 3rd, and then see

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,

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 tranceif 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

hatstand drawer, so that they should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of them again for

One really good thing happened when they took the Psammead to a magiclantern 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

selfsacrifice, 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.'

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 firstclass row.

And I daresay you would like to know all about the affair of the fishing rod, and the fishhooks, and the cook

next doorwhich was amusing from some points of view, though not perhaps the cook'sbut there really is

The only thing that there's time to tell about is the Adventure of Maskelyne and Cooke's, and the Unexpected

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

'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

But though they walked along the lefthand 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

It was a policeman who at last explained to them that England's Mysteries are now appropriately enough

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 believeeven with

'If only the Babylonians could have seen THIS conjuring,' whispered Cyril. 'It takes the shine out of their old

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,

Robert turned. The someone who had suddenly filled that empty place was Rekhmara, 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

'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 cleanshaven, curiouslydressed figure of

'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, galleryyou will now find occupied by an Ancient

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 Rekhmara 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

'Oh, no,' Jane whispered. 'I did so want to see the Mascot Moth, and the Ventriloquist.'

'How did you get to Egypt and to Tyre?' retorted Rekhmara. '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.'

'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 Rekhmara as well as they could, but even with Robert's

hat and Cyril's Inverness cape he was too striking a figure for footexercise 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

drippingtoast with their tea, leaving the front door open so that while Nurse was talking to them the boys

could creep quietly in with Rekhmara 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

'Come on,' said Cyril impatiently. 'He won't begin till we're all here. And shut the door, can't you?'

'Very interesting,' said Cyril, 'and it'll be a jolly sight more interesting if you keep following us about in a

'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

'That's about it,' said Cyril gruffly. 'Look here, it'll be teatime directly. What are we to do with you?'

'You have onehalf of the Amulet, I the other,' said Rekhmara. 'All that is now needed is the pin to join

'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 rainwrinkled windowpane, as one bead of quicksilver is drawn into another

bead, Rekhmara's Amulet slipped into the other one, and, behold! there was no more but the one Amulet!

'Black magic!' cried Rekhmara, 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

'Loosen these bonds!' cried Rekhmara in fury, 'before I blast you with the seven secret curses of AmenRa!'

'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.

'Now, look here,' said Robert, 'if you make a row we can just open that window and call the policethe

guards, you knowand tell them you've been trying to rob us. NOW will you shut up and listen to reason?'

But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered counsel had been held in the far corner by the

'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 Amuletthe whole one, I mean. And then it shall belong to you as much as to

'WE say, "Butter no parsnips",' Jane put in. 'But don't you see we WANT to be fair? Only we want to bind

'I will,' said the Priest. 'By the sacred, secret name that is written under the Altar of AmenRa, I will deal

'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 thingit's the

same as an oath to uswe do it. You trust us, and we'll trust you.' She began to unbind his legs, and the boys

'Now,' he said, 'I am stronger than you and my oath is void. I have sworn by nothing, and my oath is nothing

'Oh, yes there is!' said a voice from under the bed. Everyone startedRekhmara 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 AmenRa. Shall I call on that name?'

'Besides,' said Rekhmara, who had turned very white indeed under his natural brownness, 'I was only going

'Well, even if there WASN'T, I will be bound by the wordless oath of your strangely upright land, and having

'Then that's all right,' said the Psammead; 'and there's the teabell. What are you going to do with your

'You see we can't do anything till the 3rd of December,' said Anthea, 'that's when we are to find the whole

'Boxroom,' 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 Rekhmara was taken up to the boxroom and made as comfortable as possible in a snug nook between

an old nursery fender and the wreck of a big fourposter. They gave him a big ragbag to sit on, and an old,

motheaten 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

But when they went up in the morning with a kipper, a quarter of which each of them had gone without at

breakfast, Rekhmara was gone! There was the cosy corner with the ragbag, and the motheaten fur

'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 theirswhich hung

once more round the neck of Janehe 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 best thing we can do,' said Cyril, 'is to go through the half Amulet straight away, get the whole Amulet,

'I don't know,' Anthea hesitated. 'Would that be quite fair? Perhaps he isn't really a base deceiver. Perhaps

'I don't know,' said Anthea. 'Perhaps burglars came in the night, and accidentally killed him, and took away

'Or perhaps,' said Cyril, 'they hid theall that was mortal, in one of those big trunks in the boxroom.

'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 Rekhmara 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

They tapped at the door, and on the 'Come in' entered. The learned gentleman was sitting in front of his

'Hush!' said the learned gentleman very earnestly, 'please, hush! or the dream will go. I am learning ... Oh,

'In the grey dawn,' said the Priest, 'I left my hidingplace, and finding myself among these treasures from my

'Of course I know it's a dream,' said the learned gentleman feverishly, 'but, oh, ye gods! what a dream! By

'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.

Rekhmara hesitated, then toldand, 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.'

'Who knows,' said the Priest, 'what things undreamedof and infinitely desirable lie beyond the dark gates?'

'Why not,' he suggested, 'go back into the Past? At a moment when the Amulet is unwatched. Wish to be with

It was the simplest thing in the world! And yet none of them had ever thought of it.

'Maymay I come?' the learned gentleman timidly asked. 'It's only a dream, you know.'

'Come, and welcome, oh brother,' Rekhmara was beginning, but Cyril and Robert with one voice cried,

'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

'We must keep together,' said Rekhmara, 'since there is but one perfect Amulet to which I and these children

Jane held up the AmuletRekhmara went firstand they all passed through the great arch into which the

The learned gentleman saw through the arch a darkness lighted by smoky gleams. He rubbed his eyes. And

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.

'This is some shrine near the beginnings of belief,' said the Egyptian shivering. 'Take the Amulet and come

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,' 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.

'What a long time you've been rubbing your eyes!' said Anthea; 'don't you see we've got back?' The learned

'Miss AntheaMiss 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 Rekhmara 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

'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 nightyou know,

when we were playing "devil in the dark"and I put them in the hatstand drawer, behind the

There was a letter for Nurse and one for the children. The letters told how Father had done being a

warcorrespondent 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

'Mercy me!' said old Nurse. 'I declare if it's not too bad of You, Miss Jane. I shall have a nice todo getting

'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

'Get along with you,' said old Nurse, but she laughed jollily. 'Nice help YOU'D be. I know you. And it's ten

There was, in fact, something upstairs that they had to settle. Quite a considerable something, too. And it took

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.'

'The dream is growing more and more wonderful,' he exclaimed, when the Psammead had been explained to

'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

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 Rekhmara's,slipped into

the whole Amulet, and, behold! there was only onethe perfect and ultimate Charm.

'Yes,' said Anthea, 'and we've got our hearts' desire. Father and Mother and The Lamb are coming home

'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

'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 meand I think you do, in

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

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

'What are we to do about Rekhmara?' said Robert suddenly and abruptly. 'Shall he go back through the

'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

'Would you be so very kind,' said Anthea tremulously, 'as to speak so that we can understand you? The

Psammead said something about Rekhmara not being able to live here, and if he can't get back' She

'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

The children exchanged discouraged glances. But the eyes of Rekhmara 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

Rekhmara'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

'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.'

The voices were those of the Egyptian Priest and the learned gentleman, and the voices were eager, alive,

So Jane took the Amulet from Robert and held it up between the two men, and said, for the last time, the

The perfect Amulet grew into a double arch; the two arches leaned to each other making a great A.

The great double arch glowed in and through the green light that had been there since the Name of Power had

first been spokenit glowed with a light more bright yet more soft than the other lighta glory and

splendour and sweetness unspeakable. 'Come!' cried Rekhmara, holding out his hands.

Then Rekhmara 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

windowglass is rainwrinkled, as one quicksilver bead is drawn to another quicksilver bead, Rekhmara,

Divine Father of the Temple of AmenRa, was drawn into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one with

And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone. The fog has passed away like a dream.

The Amulet was therelittle and complete in jane's hand, and there were the other children and the

Psammead, and the learned gentleman. But Rekhmaraor the body of Rekhmarawas not there any

'Oh, the horrid thing!' cried Robert, and put his foot on a centipede as long as your finger, that crawled and

'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. Yesand has been

'Yes,' said the Psammeadits 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 Parliamenthateful placeall 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 Psammead swelled itself up, turned its long snail's eyes in one last lingering look at Antheaa loving

'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

'Here!' cried Anthea, snatching the Amulet from Jane and pressing it into the hand of the learned gentleman.

'Hereit's yoursyour very owna present from us, because you're Rekhmara as well as ... I mean,

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'

'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 nowthings I never