The Story of the Amulet, E. Nesbit [free ebook reader for iphone txt] 📗

The children from Fitzroy Street stood on the fringe of the forest looking at the games. One woman with long, fair braided hair sat a little apart from the others, and there was a look in her eyes as she followed the play of the children that made Anthea feel sad and sorry.

“None of those little girls is her own little girl,” thought Anthea.

The little black-clad London child pulled at Anthea’s sleeve.

“Look,” she said, “that one there⁠—she’s precious like mother; mother’s ’air was somethink lovely, when she ’ad time to comb it out. Mother wouldn’t never a-beat me if she’d lived ’ere⁠—I don’t suppose there’s e’er a public nearer than Epping, do you, Miss?”

In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the forest. The sad-eyed woman saw her. She stood up, her thin face lighted up with a radiance like sunrise, her long, lean arms stretched towards the London child.

“Imogen!” she cried⁠—at least the word was more like that than any other word⁠—“Imogen!”

There was a moment of great silence; the naked children paused in their play, the women on the bank stared anxiously.

“Oh, it is mother⁠—it is!” cried Imogen-from-London, and rushed across the cleared space. She and her mother clung together⁠—so closely, so strongly that they stood an instant like a statue carved in stone.

Then the women crowded round.

“It is my Imogen!” cried the woman. “Oh it is! And she wasn’t eaten by wolves. She’s come back to me. Tell me, my darling, how did you escape? Where have you been? Who has fed and clothed you?”

“I don’t know nothink,” said Imogen.

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

“But you know me?” said the fair-haired woman.

And Imogen, clinging with black-clothed arms to the bare neck, answered⁠—

“Oh, yes, mother, I know you right ’nough.”

“What is it? What do they say?” the learned gentleman asked anxiously.

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

“And the mother?”

“You can see,” said the Psammead.

“But is she really? Her child, I mean?”

“Who knows?” said the Psammead; “but each one fills the empty place in the other’s heart. It is enough.”

“Oh,” said the learned gentleman, “this is a good dream. I wish the child might stay in the dream.”

The Psammead blew itself out and granted the wish. So Imogen’s future was assured. She had found someone to want her.

“If only all the children that no one wants,” began the learned gentleman⁠—but the woman interrupted. She came towards them.

“Welcome, all!” she cried. “I am the Queen, and my child tells me that you have befriended her; and this I well believe, looking on your faces. Your garb is strange, but faces I can read. The child is bewitched, I see that well, but in this she speaks truth. Is it not so?”

The children said it wasn’t worth mentioning.

I wish you could have seen all the honours and kindnesses lavished on the children and the learned gentleman by those ancient Britons. You would have thought, to see them, that a child was something to make a fuss about, not a bit of rubbish to be hustled about the streets and hidden away in the Workhouse. It wasn’t as grand as the entertainment at Babylon, but somehow it was more satisfying.

“I think you children have some wonderful influence on me,” said the learned gentleman. “I never dreamed such dreams before I knew you.”

It was when they were alone that night under the stars where the Britons had spread a heap of dried fern for them to sleep on, that Cyril spoke.

“Well,” he said, “we’ve made it all right for Imogen, and had a jolly good time. I vote we get home again before the fighting begins.”

“What fighting?” asked Jane sleepily.

“Why, Julius Caesar, you little goat,” replied her kind brother. “Don’t you see that if this is the year fifty-five, Julius Caesar may happen at any moment.”

“I thought you liked Caesar,” said Robert.

“So I do⁠—in the history. But that’s different from being killed by his soldiers.”

“If we saw Caesar we might persuade him not to,” said Anthea.

“You persuade Caesar,” Robert laughed.

The learned gentleman, before anyone could stop him, said, “I only wish we could see Caesar some time.”

And, of course, in just the little time the Psammead took to blow itself out for wish-giving, the five, or six counting the Psammead, found themselves in Caesar’s camp, just outside Caesar’s tent. And they saw Caesar. The Psammead must have taken advantage of the loose wording of the learned gentleman’s wish, for it was not the same time of day as that on which the wish had been uttered among the dried ferns. It was sunset, and the great man sat on a chair outside his tent gazing over the sea towards Britain⁠—everyone knew without being told that it was towards Britain. Two golden eagles on the top of posts stood on each side of the tent, and on the flaps of the tent which was very gorgeous to look at were the letters S.P.Q.R.

The great man turned unchanged on the newcomers the august glance that he had turned on the violet waters of the Channel. Though they had suddenly appeared out of nothing, Caesar never showed by the faintest movement of an eyelid, by the least tightening of that firm mouth, that they were not some long expected embassy. He waved a calm hand towards the sentinels, who sprang weapons in hand towards the newcomers.

“Back!” he said in a voice that thrilled like music. “Since when has Caesar feared children and students?”

To the children he seemed to speak in the only language they knew; but the learned gentleman heard⁠—in rather a strange accent, but quite intelligibly⁠—the lips of Caesar speaking in the Latin tongue, and in that tongue, a little stiffly, he answered⁠—

“It is a dream, O Caesar.”

“A dream?” repeated Caesar. “What is a dream?”

“This,” said the learned gentleman.

“Not it,” said Cyril, “it’s a