CHAPTER 6. THE WAY TO BABYLON

‘How many miles to Babylon?

Three score and ten!

Can I get there by candle light?

Yes, and back again!’

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 dining-table, and the walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hanging all round, and kept in their places by books laid on their top ends at the table edge.

The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. You know how it is done—with the largest and best tea-tray 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 tip-top games that grown-up people are so unjust to—and old Nurse, though a brick in many respects, was quite enough of a standard grown-up 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 sitting-room, in exactly the mood not to be pleased if they could help it.

So Cyril said, ‘What a beastly mess!’

And Robert added, ‘Do shut up, Jane!’

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

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 think himself one. So he said—

‘I say—about that charm—Jane—come out. We ought to talk about it, anyhow.’

‘Oh, if that’s all,’ said Robert.

Jane obediently wriggled to the front of her house and sat there.

She felt for the charm, to make sure that it was still round her neck.

‘It ISN’T all,’ said Cyril, saying much more than he meant because he thought Robert’s tone had been rude—as indeed it had.

‘We ought to go and look for that Amulet. What’s the good of having a first-class charm and keeping it idle, just eating its head off in the stable.’

‘I’M game for anything, of course,’ said Robert; but he added, with a fine air of chivalry, ‘only I don’t think the girls are keen today somehow.’

‘Oh, yes; I am,’ said Anthea hurriedly. ‘If you think I’m afraid, I’m not.’

‘I am though,’ said Jane heavily; ‘I didn’t like it, and I won’t go there again—not for anything I won’t.’

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

‘I daresay; a place with lions and tigers in it as likely as not.’

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

‘It’s so ungrateful to the Psammead not to,’ Anthea added, a little primly.

Jane stood up. She was desperate.

‘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, and I’ll get her to burn the charm in the kitchen fire. So now, then!’

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.

‘Tell-tale tit, its tongue shall be split,

And all the dogs in our town shall have a little bit,’

sang Robert.

‘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 most cutting thing of all.

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 beasts—and I hate you all!’

With these awful words she went out and banged the door.

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 chair-leg absently. His feet were always eloquent in moments of emotion. Anthea stood pleating the end of the tablecloth into folds—she 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 Pussy—you know she’s the youngest.’

‘She called us beasts,’ said Robert, kicking the chair suddenly.

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

‘I’m not going to say I’m sorry if you mean that,’ said Robert, and the chair-leg cracked to the kick he gave as he said it.

‘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 sorry first, though I didn’t say anything, hardly.’

‘All right, let’s get it over,’ said Cyril, opening the door.‘Hi—you—Pussy!’

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

‘How many miles (sniff) to Babylon?

Three score and ten! (sniff)

Can I get there by candle light?

Yes (sniff), and back again!’

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 all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying to sing.

‘I say, Pussy, let it be pax! We’re sorry if you are—’

It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being the youngest was entitled to this ceremonial. Anthea added a special apology of her own.

‘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 ill-feeling, ‘and cranberries—that’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 familiar word just now? Were you not singing some old ballad of Babylon?’

‘No,’ said Robert, ‘at least Jane was singing “How many miles,” but I shouldn’t have thought you could have heard the words for—’

He would have said, ‘for the sniffing,’ but Anthea pinched him just in time.

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

So they all said together—

‘How many miles to Babylon?

Three score and ten!

Can I get there by candle light?

Yes, and back again!’

‘I wish one could,’ the learned gentleman said with a sigh.

‘Can’t you?’ asked Jane.

‘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 to where it once stood.’

He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look in them, as though he could see through the staircase window the splendour and glory of ancient Babylon.

‘I say,’ Cyril remarked abruptly. ‘You know that charm we showed you, and you told us how to say the name that’s on it?’

‘Yes!’

‘Well, do you think that charm was ever in Babylon?’

‘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 other, but it was Jane who spoke.

‘Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and throwing things about?’ For she had read the thoughts of the others by the unerring light of her own fears.

‘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.’

‘Er?’ said Robert.

‘I mean for—star-gazing and fortune-telling,’ said the learned gentleman, ‘and there were temples and beautiful hanging gardens—’

‘I’ll go to Babylon if you like,’ said Jane abruptly, and the others hastened to say ‘Done!’ before she should have time to change her mind.

‘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 a—a—jolly game,’ he went into his room and shut the door.

‘He said “jolly” as if it was a foreign language,’ said Cyril. ‘Come on, let’s get the Psammead and go now. I think Babylon seems a most frightfully jolly place to go to.’

So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag 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 is good thereabouts,’ it added.

Then Jane held up the charm, and Cyril said—

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

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

‘Don’t be all day,’ said the Psammead.

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

‘Ur—Hekau—Setcheh!’ 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 chest-of-drawers and the Kidderminster carpet, and the washhand-stand with the riveted willow-pattern 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 hung the charm, now grown small again, round her neck.

The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafed fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, all white-flowered and green-foliaged. 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.

‘Oh, how perfectly lovely!’ cried Anthea.

‘Why, it’s like home exactly—I mean England—only everything’s bluer, and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.’

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

‘I’m certain there’s nothing to be frightened of here,’ said Anthea.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jane. ‘I suppose the fruit-trees 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 gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn’t one.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Cyril. ‘The hanging gardens are just gardens hung up—I think on chains between houses, don’t you know, like trays. Come on; let’s get somewhere.’

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 gardening—which meant that he liked to watch the gardener at work—was able to command the respect of the others by telling them the names of a good many trees. There were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots, and fig-trees with their big five-fingered leaves. And every now and then the children had to cross another brook.

‘It’s like between the squares in Through the Looking-glass,’ said Anthea.

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

‘These are vines,’ said Cyril superiorly, ‘and I know this is a vineyard. I shouldn’t wonder if there was a wine-press inside that place over there.’

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 high—more than half the height of St Paul’s—and 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 steel-blue 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 wall.

‘Those feathery things along by the water are palms,’ said Cyril instructively.

‘Oh, yes; you know everything,’ Robert replied. ‘What’s all that grey-green stuff you see away over there, where it’s all flat and sandy?’

‘All right,’ said Cyril loftily, ‘I don’t want to tell you anything. I only thought you’d like to know a palm-tree when you saw it again.’

‘Look!’ cried Anthea; ‘they’re opening the gates.’

And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and instantly a little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and along the road towards them.

The children, with one accord, crouched behind the tamarisk hedge.

‘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 work-people had passed (they WERE work-people, the children felt sure, because they were dressed so plainly—just one long blue shirt thing—of 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.

‘Courage,’ said Cyril. ‘Step out. It’s no use trying to sneak past. Be bold!’

Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into ‘The British Grenadiers’, and to its quick-step they approached the gates of Babylon.

‘Some talk of Alexander,

And some of Hercules,

Of Hector and Lysander,

And such great names as these.

But of all the gallant heroes...’

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

‘Who goes there?’ they said.

(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 explain it now.)

‘We come from very far,’ said Cyril mechanically. ‘From the Empire where the sun never sets, and we want to see your King.’

‘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 from.

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

‘But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?’ asked Cyril.

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 little—village.’ He said it in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean the ‘herring pond’.

The gatekeeper hesitated.

‘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?’

‘Oh yes, if you like,’ said the Captain, ‘but don’t be all day.’

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 kind-faced woman sat spinning at the door of a very dark room.

‘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 people—there were no black frock-coats 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 want—and for a great many things that if you wanted here and now, want would be your master. There were pineapples and peaches in heaps—and 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 Liberty’s. It seemed no time at all before the woman said—

‘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 white—like 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 man—images of men with wings like chain armour, and hawks’ heads, and winged men with the heads of dogs. And there were the statues of great kings.

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 in the noon-day sun.

All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of the Queen. Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy flounces, poor folks in plain and simple clothes, dandies with beards oiled and curled.

And Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane, went with the crowd.

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 to.’

‘Oh! don’t leave us,’ said Jane. The woman was giving some last instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane.

‘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 basket, saw that its mouth opened wider than anybody’s.

‘You needn’t gawp like that,’ Jane went on. ‘I’m not going to be bothered with queens any more than IT is. And I know, wherever it is, it’ll take jolly good care that it’s safe.’

‘She’s right there,’ said everyone, for they had observed that the Psammead had a way of knowing which side its bread was buttered.

She turned to the woman and said, ‘You’ll take me home with you, won’t you? And let me play with your little girls till the others have done with the Queen.’

‘Surely I will, little heart!’ said the woman.

And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, who took the woman’s hand, and trotted contentedly away with the Psammead’s bag under the other arm.

The others stood looking after her till she, the woman, and the basket were lost in the many-coloured crowd. Then Anthea turned once more to the palace’s magnificent doorway and said—

‘Let’s ask the porter to take care of our Babylonian overcoats.’

So they took off the garments that the woman had lent them and stood amid the jostling petitioners of the Queen in their own English frocks and coats and hats and boots.

‘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 door-porter spoke to a black man, he spoke to someone else. There was a whispering, waiting pause. Then a big man, with a cleanly-shaven face, beckoned them from the top of a flight of red marble steps.

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 kind.

‘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 dream-lady, all gold and silver and jewels and snowy drift of veils, was raising Anthea, and saying—

‘Don’t be frightened, I really am SO glad you came! The land where the sun never sets! I am delighted to see you! I was getting quite too dreadfully bored for anything!’

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 Psammead’s with her.’

‘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 GOT the charm.’

Then Robert saw, and he murmured, ‘Crikey!’ at the foot of the throne of Babylon; while Cyril hoarsely whispered the plain English fact—

‘Jane’s got the charm round her neck, you silly cuckoo.’

‘Crikey!’ Robert repeated in heart-broken undertones.

 

CHAPTER 7. ‘THE DEEPEST DUNGEON BELOW THE CASTLE MOAT’

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

‘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, isn’t it? Do you do justice in your own country?’

‘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 myself—much 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 horrid.’

‘What are scales?’ asked the Queen, ‘and what is Jane?’

‘Jane is my little sister. One of the guards-at-the-gate’s wife is taking care of her. And scales are music.’

‘I never heard of the instrument,’ said the Queen. ‘Do you sing?’

‘Oh, yes. We can sing in parts,’ said Anthea.

‘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 feel as though I’d known you quite a long time already.’

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 perhaps just the least bit flighty.

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.’

‘But suppose they both did it?’ Cyril could not help interrupting.

‘Then prison’s the best place for them,’ said the Queen.

‘But suppose neither did it.’

‘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 head—at least Anthea thought so, but it may have been only road-dust. She complained that her husband was in prison.

‘What for?’ said the Queen.

‘They SAID it was for speaking evil of your Majesty,’ said the woman, ‘but it wasn’t. Someone had a spite against him. That was what it was.’

‘How do you know he hadn’t spoken evil of me?’ said the Queen.

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

‘Let the man out,’ said the Queen, smiling. ‘Next case.’

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 released.

The people came to the Queen about all sorts of family quarrels and neighbourly misunderstandings—from a fight between brothers over the division of an inheritance, to the dishonest and unfriendly conduct of a woman who had borrowed a cooking-pot 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 with extreme loudness, and said—

‘The audience is over for today.’

Everyone said, ‘May the Queen live for ever!’ and went out.

And the children were left alone in the justice-hall 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 shade—needed, indeed, for already the sun was as hot as it is in England in August at the seaside.

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 thoroughly.

The Queen overheard him.

‘Not at all,’ said she. ‘Ritti-Marduk is a very clean man. And one has to have SOME ONE as taster, you know, because of poison.’

The word made the children feel rather creepy; but Ritti-Marduk had tasted all the cups, so they felt pretty safe. The drink was delicious—very cold, and tasting like lemonade and partly like penny ices.

‘Leave us,’ said the Queen. And all the Court ladies, in their beautiful, many-folded, many-coloured, fringed dresses, filed out slowly, and the children were left alone with the Queen.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘tell me all about yourselves.’

They looked at each other.

‘You, Bobs,’ said Cyril.

‘No—Anthea,’ said Robert.

‘No—you—Cyril,’ said Anthea. ‘Don’t you remember how pleased the Queen of India was when you told her all about us?’

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 truth—and all the truth that he had to tell. But now it was not easy to tell a convincing story without mentioning the Amulet—which, of course, it wouldn’t have done to mention—and without owning that they were really living in London, about 2,500 years later than the time they were talking in.

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 himself.

‘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.

‘Ritti-Marduk shall run down to the gates and find out which guard your sister went home with.’

‘Might he’—Anthea’s voice was tremulous—‘might he—would it interfere with his meal-times, or anything like that, if he went NOW?’

‘Of course he shall go now. He may think himself lucky if he gets his meals at any time,’ said the Queen heartily, and clapped her hands.

‘May I send a letter?’ asked Cyril, pulling out a red-backed penny account-book, and feeling in his pockets for a stump of pencil that he knew was in one of them.

‘By all means. I’ll call my scribe.’

‘Oh, I can scribe right enough, thanks,’ said Cyril, finding the pencil and licking its point. He even had to bite the wood a little, for it was very blunt.

‘Oh, you clever, clever boy!’ said the Queen. ‘DO let me watch you do it!’

Cyril wrote on a leaf of the book—it was of rough, woolly paper, with hairs that stuck out and would have got in his pen if he had been using one, and ruled for accounts.

‘Hide IT most carefully before you come here,’ he wrote, ‘and don’t mention it—and 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 a—and like a—like a festival; and that she need not be afraid, and that she is to come at once.’

Ritti-Marduk, who had come in and had stood waiting while Cyril wrote, his Babylonish eyes nearly starting out of his Babylonish head, now took the letter, with some reluctance.

‘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 as—Peppermint!’ he ended abruptly.

‘I know not the god,’ said Ritti-Marduk, bending timorously.

‘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.’

Ritti-Marduk went, seeming only partly satisfied; and then the Queen began to admire the penny account-book and the bit of pencil in so marked and significant a way that Cyril felt he could not do less than press them upon her as a gift. She ruffled the leaves delightedly.

‘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 breath’, as Anthea said afterwards.

She took the book and hid it reverently among the bright folds of her gown.

‘You shall teach me later to say the great names,’ she said. ‘And the names of their Ministers—perhaps the great Nisroch is one of them?’

‘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 sure—and 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 later—because of course you’ll make us a nice long visit now you have come, won’t you? Now tell me—but no, I am quite tired out with your being so clever. Besides, I’m sure you’d like ME to tell YOU something, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Anthea. ‘I want to know how it is that the King has gone—’

‘Excuse me, but you should say “the King may-he-live-for-ever”,’ said the Queen gently.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Anthea hastened to say—‘the King may-he-live-for-ever 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 rate.’

The Queen looked bewildered.

‘She means,’ explained Robert, ‘that English kings only have one wife—at least, Henry the Eighth had seven or eight, but not all at once.’

‘In our country,’ said the Queen scornfully, ‘a king would not reign a day who had only one wife. No one would respect him, and quite right too.’

‘Then are all the other thirteen alive?’ asked Anthea.

‘Of course they are—poor mean-spirited things! I don’t associate with them, of course, I am the Queen: they’re only the wives.’

‘I see,’ said Anthea, gasping.

‘But oh, my dears,’ the Queen went on, ‘such a to-do as there’s been about this last wife! You never did! It really was TOO funny. We wanted an Egyptian princess. The King may-he-live-for-ever 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 horses—quite 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 Sun-God, 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 last we asked the hand of his daughter in marriage.’

‘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 King of Babylon!’

‘What a trick!’ said Cyril.

‘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, black-haired thing is coming, and the King may-he-live-for-ever 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 gold-plated wheels and onyx-studded hubs—much 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 brought—beautiful 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 Fitzroy Street.

After dinner everybody went to sleep, even the children.

The Queen awoke with a start.

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

‘Hasn’t Ritti-Marduk 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.’

Ritti-Marduk came in a moment later.

‘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 loss—Jane, the Psammead, and the Amulet—gave 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 Jane go. You know the sort of talk it was, don’t you? At last Cyril said—

‘After all, she’s with the Psammead, so SHE’S all right. The Psammead is jolly careful of itself too. And it isn’t as if we were in any danger. Let’s try to buck up and enjoy the banquet.’

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 woven in them, very bright and beautiful.

The middle of the room was left clear, and different people came and did amusing things. There were conjurers and jugglers and snake-charmers, 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 King.

‘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 may-he-live-for-ever is reward enough for me.’

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

‘I say!’ said Cyril, awed by the magnificence of the gift.

‘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 now—you promised to sing us something. Would you like my minstrels to accompany you?’

‘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 November—with penny horns, a tin whistle, a tea-tray, 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 infuriating din.

‘What shall we sing?’ Cyril was asking.

‘Sweet and low?’ suggested Anthea.

‘Too soft—I vote for “Who will o’er the downs”. Now then—one, two, three.

‘Oh, who will o’er the downs so free,

Oh, who will with me ride,

Oh, who will up and follow me,

To win a blooming bride?

Her father he has locked the door,

Her mother keeps the key;

But neither bolt nor bar shall keep

My own true love from me.’

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 Court to the wildest enthusiasm.

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

So they sang:

‘I saw her bower at twilight gray,

‘Twas guarded safe and sure.

I saw her bower at break of day,

‘Twas guarded then no more.

The varlets they were all asleep,

And there was none to see

The greeting fair that passed there

Between my love and me.’

Shouts of applause greeted the ending of the verse, and the King would not be satisfied till they had sung all their part-songs (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!’

‘We ought to say it’s enough honour, like the dancer did,’ whispered Anthea.

‘No, let’s ask for IT,’ said Robert.

‘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 afterthought, ‘O King, live-for-ever.’

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—

‘Guard, seize them!’

Instantly, from nowhere as it seemed, sprang eight soldiers in bright armour inlaid with gold, and tunics of red and white. Very splendid they were, and very alarming.

‘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.

‘You’ve done it this time,’ said Cyril with extreme bitterness.

‘Oh, it will come right. It MUST. It always does,’ said Anthea desperately.

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 felt the night air. Then there was more stone, and steps down.

‘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 torch—that 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, shiny things moved sluggishly, uneasily, horribly.

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 Adam—and 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!’

‘Poor little kids,’ said the gaoler.

‘Oh, yes,’ said the captain. ‘I’ve got kids of my own too. But it doesn’t do to let domestic sentiment interfere with one’s public duties. Good night.’

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 up all right and safe.’

‘Humph,’ said Cyril bitterly. And Robert suddenly said—

‘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 forgot.’

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 cream-and-juicy-date feasts of the palace; also a pitcher of water.

‘There,’ he said.

‘Oh, thank you so very much. You ARE kind,’ said Anthea feverishly.

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

‘Oh, dear Mr Gaoler,’ said Anthea, ‘whatever will they do to us tomorrow?’

‘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, and the three were left alone in the damp, dim vault.

‘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.

‘I shouldn’t think so. But we might try.’

So they tried. But the blank silence of the damp dungeon remained unchanged.

‘What was the name the Queen said?’ asked Cyril suddenly. ‘Nisbeth—Nesbit—something? You know, the slave of the great names?’

‘Wait a sec,’ said Robert, ‘though I don’t know why you want it. Nusroch—Nisrock—Nisroch—that’s it.’

Then Anthea pulled herself together. All her muscles tightened, and the muscles of her mind and soul, if you can call them that, tightened too.

‘UR HEKAU SETCHEH,’ she cried in a fervent voice. ‘Oh, Nisroch, servant of the Great Ones, come and help us!’

There was a waiting silence. Then a cold, blue light awoke in the corner where the straw was—and 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 and the body of a man.

It came towards them, strong and unspeakably horrible.

‘Oh, go away,’ cried Anthea; but Cyril cried, ‘No; stay!’

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 Ones is YOUR servant. What is your need that you call on the name of Nisroch?’

‘We want to go home,’ said Robert.

‘No, no,’ cried Anthea; ‘we want to be where Jane is.’

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 water-lilies, 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, discontented way. On a blue-covered couch lay Jane fast asleep.

‘Walk forward without fear,’ said Nisroch. ‘Is there aught else that the Servant of the great Name can do for those who speak that name?’

‘No—oh, no,’ said Cyril. ‘It’s all right now. Thanks ever so.’

‘You are a dear,’ cried Anthea, not in the least knowing what she was saying. ‘Oh, thank you thank you. But DO go NOW!’

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

‘Go forward,’ said Nisroch. And they went.

‘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 away—but thanks be to Dagon, you’ve managed it for yourselves. You must get away. I’ll wake my chief lady and she shall call Ritti-Marduk, and he’ll let you out the back way, and—’

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

She shook Jane with energy, and Jane slowly awoke.

‘Ritti-Marduk 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 know? But I don’t want anything to happen to you. Do let me rouse someone.’

‘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 gaoler’s fault. It was Nisroch.’

‘Nisroch!’ echoed the Queen. ‘You are indeed magicians.’

Jane sat up, blinking stupidly.

‘Hold It up, and say the word,’ cried Cyril, catching up the Psammead, which mechanically bit him, but only very slightly.

‘Which is the East?’ asked Jane.

‘Behind me,’ said the Queen. ‘Why?’

‘Ur Hekau Setcheh,’ said Jane sleepily, and held up the charm.

And there they all were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street.

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

Jane went.

‘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 jolly in Babylon, I think! I liked it no end.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Cyril carelessly. ‘It was jolly enough, of course, but I thought we’d been there long enough. Mother always says you oughtn’t to wear out your welcome!’

 

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