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

waters flow, and the trees bear fruit, and the little new beautiful babies come. (Not that babies are beautiful, of course,” it broke off to say, “but their mothers think they are⁠—and as long as you think a thing’s true it is true as far as you’re concerned.)”

Robert yawned.

The Psammead went on.

“The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people unhappy⁠—jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness, selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet was made. Don’t you think it would be nice to have it?”

“Very,” said the children, quite without enthusiasm.

“And it can give you strength and courage.”

“That’s better,” said Cyril.

“And virtue.”

“I suppose it’s nice to have that,” said Jane, but not with much interest.

“And it can give you your heart’s desire.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Robert.

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

“Heart’s desire is good enough for me,” said Cyril.

“Yes, but,” Anthea ventured, “all that’s what the whole charm can do. There’s something that the half we’ve got can win off its own bat⁠—isn’t there?” She appealed to the Psammead. It nodded.

“Yes,” it said; “the half has the power to take you anywhere you like to look for the other half.”

This seemed a brilliant prospect till Robert asked⁠—

“Does it know where to look?”

The Psammead shook its head and answered, “I don’t think it’s likely.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then,” said Robert, “we might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. Yes⁠—it is bottle, and not bundle, Father said so.”

“Not at all,” said the Psammead briskly-, “you think you know everything, but you are quite mistaken. The first thing is to get the thing to talk.”

“Can it?” Jane questioned. Jane’s question did not mean that she thought it couldn’t, for in spite of the parlour furniture the feeling of magic was growing deeper and thicker, and seemed to fill the room like a dream of a scented fog.

“Of course it can. I suppose you can read.”

“Oh yes!” Everyone was rather hurt at the question.

“Well, then⁠—all you’ve got to do is to read the name that’s written on the part of the charm that you’ve got. And as soon as you say the name out loud the thing will have power to do⁠—well, several things.”

There was a silence. The red charm was passed from hand to hand.

“There’s no name on it,” said Cyril at last.

“Nonsense,” said the Psammead; “what’s that?”

“Oh, that!” said Cyril, “it’s not reading. It looks like pictures of chickens and snakes and things.”

This was what was on the charm:

“I’ve no patience with you,” said the Psammead; “if you can’t read you must find someone who can. A priest now?”

“We don’t know any priests,” said Anthea; “we know a clergyman⁠—he’s called a priest in the prayerbook, you know⁠—but he only knows Greek and Latin and Hebrew, and this isn’t any of those⁠—I know.”

The Psammead stamped a furry foot angrily.

“I wish I’d never seen you,” it said; “you aren’t any more good than so many stone images. Not so much, if I’m to tell the truth. Is there no wise man in your Babylon who can pronounce the names of the Great Ones?”

“There’s a poor learned gentleman upstairs,” said Anthea, “we might try him. He has a lot of stone images in his room, and iron-looking ones too⁠—we peeped in once when he was out. Old Nurse says he doesn’t eat enough to keep a canary alive. He spends it all on stones and things.”

“Try him,” said the Psammead, “only be careful. If he knows a greater name than this and uses it against you, your charm will be of no use. Bind him first with the chains of honour and upright dealing. And then ask his aid⁠—oh, yes, you’d better all go; you can put me to sand as you go upstairs. I must have a few minutes’ peace and quietness.”

So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed their hair⁠—this was Anthea’s idea⁠—and went up to knock at the door of the “poor learned gentleman,” and to “bind him with the chains of honour and upright dealing.”

III The Past

The learned gentleman had let his dinner get quite cold. It was mutton chop, and as it lay on the plate it looked like a brown island in the middle of a frozen pond, because the grease of the gravy had become cold, and consequently white. It looked very nasty, and it was the first thing the children saw when, after knocking three times and receiving no reply, one of them ventured to turn the handle and softly to open the door. The chop was on the end of a long table that ran down one side of the room. The table had images on it and queer-shaped stones, and books. And there were glass cases fixed against the wall behind, with little strange things in them. The cases were rather like the ones you see in jewellers’ shops.

The “poor learned gentleman” was sitting at a table in the window, looking at something very small which he held in a pair of fine pincers. He had a round spyglass sort of thing in one eye⁠—which reminded the children of watchmakers, and also of the long snail’s eyes of the Psammead.

The gentleman was very long and thin, and his long, thin boots stuck out under the other side of his table. He did not hear the door open, and the children stood hesitating. At last Robert gave the door a push, and they all started back, for in the middle of the wall that the door had hidden was a mummy-case⁠—very, very, very big⁠—painted in red and yellow and green and black, and the face of it seemed to look at them quite angrily.

You know what a mummy-case is like, of course? If you don’t you had better go to the British Museum