The Story of the Amulet, E. Nesbit [me reader .TXT] 📗

She would have put “travelling carriage”, but she made the letters too big, so there was no room. The bag was made into a bag with old Nurse’s sewing machine, and the strings of it were Anthea’s and Jane’s best red hair ribbons.

At tea-time, when the boys had come home with a most unfavourable report of the St James’s Park ducks, Anthea ventured to awaken the Psammead, and to show it its new travelling bag.

“Humph,” it said, sniffing a little contemptuously, yet at the same time affectionately, “it’s not so dusty.”

The Psammead seemed to pick up very easily the kind of things that people said nowadays. For a creature that had in its time associated with Megatheriums and Pterodactyls, its quickness was really wonderful.

“It’s more worthy of me,” it said, “than the kind of bag that’s given away with a pound of plaice. When do you propose to take me out in it?”

“I should like a rest from taking you or us anywhere,” said Cyril. But Jane said—

“I want to go to Egypt. I did like that Egyptian Princess that came to marry the King in Babylon. She told me about the larks they have in Egypt. And the cats. Do let’s go there. And I told her what the bird things on the Amulet were like. And she said it was Egyptian writing.”

The others exchanged looks of silent rejoicing at the thought of their cleverness in having concealed from Jane the terrors they had suffered in the dungeon below the Euphrates.

“Egypt’s so nice too,” Jane went on, “because of Doctor Brewer’s Scripture History. I would like to go there when Joseph was dreaming those curious dreams, or when Moses was doing wonderful things with snakes and sticks.”

“I don’t care about snakes,” said Anthea shuddering.

“Well, we needn’t be in at that part, but Babylon was lovely! We had cream and sweet, sticky stuff. And I expect Egypt’s the same.”

There was a good deal of discussion, but it all ended in everybody’s agreeing to Jane’s idea. And next morning directly after breakfast (which was kippers and very nice) the Psammead was invited to get into his travelling carriage.

The moment after it had done so, with stiff, furry reluctance, like that of a cat when you want to nurse it, and its ideas are not the same as yours, old Nurse came in.

“Well, chickies,” she said, “are you feeling very dull?”

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

“Ah,” said old Nurse, “the Royal Academy, I suppose? Don’t go wasting your money too reckless, that’s all.”

She cleared away the kipper bones and the tea-things, and when she had swept up the crumbs and removed the cloth, the Amulet was held up and the order given—just as Duchesses (and other people) give it to their coachmen.

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

“When Moses was there,” added Jane.

And there, in the dingy Fitzroy Street dining-room, the Amulet grew big, and it was an arch, and through it they saw a blue, blue sky and a running river.

“No, stop!” said Cyril, and pulled down Jane’s hand with the Amulet in it.

“What silly cuckoos we all are,” he said. “Of course we can’t go. We daren’t leave home for a single minute now, for fear that minute should be the minute.”

“What minute be what minute?” asked Jane impatiently, trying to get her hand away from Cyril.

“The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,” said Cyril. And then everyone saw it.

For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful stream. The children could never go out all at once, because they never knew when the King of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave his Queen free to pay them that surprise visit to which she was, without doubt, eagerly looking forward.

So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in.

The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but for the new interest taken in them by the learned gentleman.

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

“I saw one like that,” she said, “in—”

“In the British Museum, perhaps?”

“I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,” said Anthea cautiously.

“A pretty fancy,” said the learned gentleman, “and quite correct too, because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from Babylon.”

The other three were all out that day. The boys had been going to the Zoo, and Jane had said so plaintively, “I’m sure I am fonder of rhinoceroses than either of you are,” that Anthea had told her to run along then. And she had run, catching the boys before that part of the road where Fitzroy Street suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square.

“I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,” said Anthea. “I do have such interesting dreams about it—at least, not dreams exactly, but quite as wonderful.”

“Do sit down and tell me,” said he. So she sat down and told. And he asked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as well as she could.

“Wonderful—wonderful!” he said at last. “One’s heard of thought-transference, but I never thought I had any power of that sort. Yet it must be that, and very bad for you, I should think. Doesn’t your head ache very much?”

He suddenly put a cold, thin hand on her forehead.

“No thank you, not at all,” said she.

“I assure you it is not done intentionally,” he went on. “Of course I know a good deal about Babylon, and I unconsciously communicate it to you; you’ve heard of thought-reading, but some of the things you say, I don’t understand; they never enter my head, and yet they’re so astoundingly probable.”

“It’s all right,” said Anthea reassuringly. “I understand. And don’t worry. It’s all quite simple really.”

It was not quite so simple when Anthea, having heard the others come in, went down, and before she had had time to ask how they had liked the Zoo, heard a noise outside, compared to which the wild beasts’ noises were gentle as singing birds.

“Good gracious!” cried Anthea, “what’s that?”

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

“’Ere’s a guy!”

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

“Not it—it’s a bloomin’ looney, I tell you.”

Then came a clear voice that they knew.

“Retire, slaves!” it said.

“What’s she a saying of?” cried a dozen voices.

“Some blamed foreign lingo,” one voice replied.

The children rushed to the door. A crowd was on the road and pavement.

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

“Jimminy!” cried Robert, and ran down the steps, “here she is!”

“Here!” he cried, “look out—let the lady pass. She’s a friend of ours, coming to see us.”

“Nice friend for a respectable house,” snorted a fat woman with marrows on a handcart.

All the same the crowd made way a little. The Queen met Robert on the pavement, and Cyril joined them, the Psammead bag still on his arm.

“Here,” he whispered; “here’s the Psammead; you can get wishes.”

“I wish you’d come in a different dress, if you had to come,” said Robert; “but it’s no use my wishing anything.”

“No,” said the Queen. “I wish I was dressed—no, I don’t—I wish they were dressed properly, then they wouldn’t be so silly.”

The Psammead blew itself out till the bag was a very tight fit for it; and suddenly every man, woman, and child in that crowd felt that it had not enough clothes on. For, of course, the Queen’s idea of proper dress was the dress that had been proper for the working-classes 3,000 years ago in Babylon—and there was not much of it.

“Lawky me!” said the marrow-selling woman, “whatever could a-took me to come out this figure?” and she wheeled her cart away very quickly indeed.

“Someone’s made a pretty guy of you—talk of guys,” said a man who sold bootlaces.

“Well, don’t you talk,” said the man next to him. “Look at your own silly legs; and where’s your boots?”

“I never come out like this, I’ll take my sacred,” said the bootlace-seller. “I wasn’t quite myself last night, I’ll own, but not to dress up like a circus.”

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

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

“Blowed if