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

bottom of the sea. Our divers dive down and bring up the fresh water in skin bottles! Can your barbarian divers do as much?”

“I suppose not,” said Robert, and put away a wild desire to explain to the Captain the English system of waterworks, pipes, taps, and the intricacies of the plumbers’ trade.

As they neared the quay the skipper made a hasty toilet. He did his hair, combed his beard, put on a garment like a jersey with short sleeves, an embroidered belt, a necklace of beads, and a big signet ring.

“Now,” said he, “I’m fit to be seen. Come along?”

“Where to?” said Jane cautiously.

“To Pheles, the great sea-captain,” said the skipper, “the man I told you of, who loves barbarians.”

Then Rekh-marā came forward, and, for the first time, spoke.

“I have known these children in another land,” he said. “You know my powers of magic. It was my magic that brought these barbarians to your boat. And you know how they will profit you. I read your thoughts. Let me come with you and see the end of them, and then I will work the spell I promised you in return for the little experience you have so kindly given me on your boat.”

The skipper looked at the Egyptian with some disfavour.

“So it was your doing,” he said. “I might have guessed it. Well, come on.”

So he came, and the girls wished he hadn’t. But Robert whispered⁠—

“Nonsense⁠—as long as he’s with us we’ve got some chance of the Amulet. We can always fly if anything goes wrong.”

The morning was so fresh and bright; their breakfast had been so good and so unusual; they had actually seen the Amulet round the Egyptian’s neck. One or two, or all these things, suddenly raised the children’s spirits. They went off quite cheerfully through the city gate⁠—it was not arched, but roofed over with a great flat stone⁠—and so through the street, which smelt horribly of fish and garlic and a thousand other things even less agreeable. But far worse than the street scents was the scent of the factory, where the skipper called in to sell his night’s catch. I wish I could tell you all about that factory, but I haven’t time, and perhaps after all you aren’t interested in dyeing works. I will only mention that Robert was triumphantly proved to be right. The dye was a yellowish-white liquid of a creamy consistency, and it smelt more strongly of garlic than garlic itself does.

While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works the Egyptian came close to the children, and said, suddenly and softly⁠—

“Trust me.”

“I wish we could,” said Anthea.

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

“Yes,” said Cyril bluntly.

“But you also, you want my Amulet, and I am trusting you.”

“There’s something in that,” said Robert.

“We have the two halves of the Amulet,” said the Priest, “but not yet the pin that joined them. Our only chance of getting that is to remain together. Once part these two halves and they may never be found in the same time and place. Be wise. Our interests are the same.”

Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him the dye-master. His hair and beard were curled like the men’s in Babylon, and he was dressed like the skipper, but with added grandeur of gold and embroidery. He had necklaces of beads and silver, and a glass amulet with a man’s face, very like his own, set between two bull’s heads, as well as gold and silver bracelets and armlets. He looked keenly at the children. Then he said⁠—

“My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He’s at his garden house⁠—unless he’s hunting wild boar in the marshes. He gets frightfully bored on shore.”

“Ah,” said the skipper, “he’s a true-born Phoenician. ‘Tyre, Tyre forever! Oh, Tyre rules the waves!’ as the old song says. I’ll go at once, and show him my young barbarians.”

“I should,” said the dye-master. “They are very rum, aren’t they? What frightful clothes, and what a lot of them! Observe the covering of their feet. Hideous indeed.”

Robert could not help thinking how easy, and at the same time pleasant, it would be to catch hold of the dye-master’s feet and tip him backward into the great sunken vat just near him. But if he had, flight would have had to be the next move, so he restrained his impulse.

There was something about this Tyrian adventure that was different from all the others. It was, somehow, calmer. And there was the undoubted fact that the charm was there on the neck of the Egyptian.

So they enjoyed everything to the full, the row from the Island City to the shore, the ride on the donkeys that the skipper hired at the gate of the mainland city, and the pleasant country⁠—palms and figs and cedars all about. It was like a garden⁠—clematis, honeysuckle, and jasmine clung about the olive and mulberry trees, and there were tulips and gladiolus, and clumps of mandrake, which has 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 bungalow⁠—long and low, with pillars all along the front. Cedars and sycamores grew near it and sheltered it pleasantly.

Everyone dismounted, and the donkeys were led away.

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

“Because it’s the place to spend a happy day.”

“It’s jolly decent of the skipper to have brought us to such a ripping place,” said Cyril.

“Do you know,” said Anthea, “this feels more real than anything else we’ve seen? It’s like a holiday in the country at home.”

The children were left alone in a large hall. The floor was mosaic, done with wonderful pictures of ships and sea-beasts and fishes. Through an open doorway they could see a pleasant courtyard with flowers.

“I should like to spend a week here,”