The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbit (best free novels .txt) 📗

rattle of wheels and the pounding of hoofs. A voice shouted, “Guards!”

“The Guards! The Guards!” shouted another voice, and the crowd of workmen took up the cry. “The Guards! Pharaoh’s Guards!” And swaying a little once more, the crowd hung for a moment as it were balanced. Then as the trampling hoofs came nearer the workmen fled dispersed, up alleys and into the courts of houses, and the Guards in their embossed leather chariots swept down the street at the gallop, their wheels clattering over the stones, and their dark-coloured, blue tunics blown open and back with the wind of their going.

“So that riot’s over,” said the crimped-linen-dressed lady; “that’s a blessing! And did you notice the Captain of the Guard? What a very handsome man he was, to be sure!”

The four children had taken advantage of the moment’s pause before the crowd turned to fly, to edge themselves and drag each other into an arched doorway.

Now they each drew a long breath and looked at the others.

“We’re well out of that,” said Cyril.

“Yes,” said Anthea, “but I do wish the poor men hadn’t been driven back before they could get to the King. He might have done something for them.”

“Not if he was the one in the Bible he wouldn’t,” said Jane. “He had a hard heart.”

“Ah, that was the Moses one,” Anthea explained. “The Joseph one was quite different. I should like to see Pharaoh’s house. I wonder whether it’s like the Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace.”

“I thought we decided to try to get taken on in a Temple,” said Cyril in injured tones.

“Yes, but we’ve got to know someone first. Couldn’t we make friends with a Temple doorkeeper—we might give him the padlock or something. I wonder which are temples and which are palaces,” Robert added, glancing across the market-place to where an enormous gateway with huge side buildings towered towards the sky. To right and left of it were other buildings only a little less magnificent.

“Did you wish to seek out the Temple of Amen Rā?” asked a soft voice behind them, “or the Temple of Mut, or the Temple of Khonsu?”

They turned to find beside them a young man. He was shaved clean from head to foot, and on his feet were light papyrus sandals. He was clothed in a linen tunic of white, embroidered heavily in colours. He was gay with anklets, bracelets, and armlets of gold, richly inlaid. He wore a ring on his finger, and he had a short jacket of gold embroidery something like the Zouave soldiers wear, and on his neck was a gold collar with many amulets hanging from it. But among the amulets the children could see none like theirs.

“It doesn’t matter which Temple,” said Cyril frankly.

“Tell me your mission,” said the young man. “I am a divine father of the Temple of Amen Rā and perhaps I can help you.”

“Well,” said Cyril, “we’ve come from the great Empire on which the sun never sets.”

“I thought somehow that you’d come from some odd, out-of-the-way spot,” said the priest with courtesy.

“And we’ve seen a good many palaces. We thought we should like to see a Temple, for a change,” said Robert.

The Psammead stirred uneasily in its embroidered bag.

“Have you brought gifts to the Temple?” asked the priest cautiously.

“We have got some gifts,” said Cyril with equal caution. “You see there’s magic mixed up in it. So we can’t tell you everything. But we don’t want to give our gifts for nothing.”

“Beware how you insult the god,” said the priest sternly. “I also can do magic. I can make a waxen image of you, and I can say words which, as the wax image melts before the fire, will make you dwindle away and at last perish miserably.”

“Pooh!” said Cyril stoutly, “that’s nothing. I can make fire itself!”

“I should jolly well like to see you do it,” said the priest unbelievingly.

“Well, you shall,” said Cyril, “nothing easier. Just stand close round me.”

“Do you need no preparation—no fasting, no incantations?” The priest’s tone was incredulous.

“The incantation’s quite short,” said Cyril, taking the hint; “and as for fasting, it’s not needed in my sort of magic. Union Jack, Printing Press, Gunpowder, Rule Britannia! Come, Fire, at the end of this little stick!”

He had pulled a match from his pocket, and as he ended the incantation which contained no words that it seemed likely the Egyptian had ever heard he stooped in the little crowd of his relations and the priest and struck the match on his boot. He stood up, shielding the flame with one hand.

“See?” he said, with modest pride. “Here, take it into your hand.”

“No, thank you,” said the priest, swiftly backing. “Can you do that again?”

“Yes.”

“Then come with me to the great double house of Pharaoh. He loves good magic, and he will raise you to honour and glory. There’s no need of secrets between initiates,” he went on confidentially. “The fact is, I am out of favour at present owing to a little matter of failure of prophecy. I told him a beautiful princess would be sent to him from Syria, and, lo! a woman thirty years old arrived. But she was a beautiful woman not so long ago. Time is only a mode of thought, you know.”

The children thrilled to the familiar words.

“So you know that too, do you?” said Cyril.

“It is part of the mystery of all magic, is it not?” said the priest. “Now if I bring you to Pharaoh the little unpleasantness I spoke of will be forgotten. And I will ask Pharaoh, the Great House, Son of the Sun, and Lord of the South and North, to decree that you shall lodge in the Temple. Then you can have a good look round, and teach me your magic. And I will teach you mine.”

This idea seemed good—at least it was better than any other which at that moment occurred to anybody, so they followed the priest through the city.

The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the priest explained, were built within walls twenty to twenty-five feet high, and such windows as showed in the walls were very high up. The tops of palm-trees showed above the walls. The poor people’s houses were little square huts with a door and two windows, and smoke coming out of a hole in the back.

“The poor Egyptians haven’t improved so very much in their building since the first time we came to Egypt,” whispered Cyril to Anthea.

The huts were roofed with palm branches, and everywhere there were chickens, and goats, and little naked children kicking about in the yellow dust. On one roof was a goat, who had climbed up and was eating the dry palm-leaves with snorts and head-tossings of delight. Over every house door was some sort of figure or shape.

“Amulets,” the priest explained, “to keep off the evil eye.”

“I don’t think much of your ‘nice Egypt’,” Robert whispered to Jane; “it’s simply not a patch on Babylon.”

“Ah, you wait till you see the palace,” Jane whispered back.

The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they had yet seen that day, though it would have made but a poor show beside that of the Babylonian King. They came to it through a great square pillared doorway of sandstone that stood in a high brick wall. The shut doors were of massive cedar, with bronze hinges, and were studded with bronze nails. At the side was a little door and a wicket gate, and through this the priest led the children. He seemed to know a word that made the sentries make way for him.

Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of trees and flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus flowers at the margin, and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and looking, as Jane said, quite modern.

“The guard-chamber, the store-houses, the queen’s house,” said the priest, pointing them out.

They passed through open courtyards, paved with flat stones, and the priest whispered to a guard at a great inner gate.

“We are fortunate,” he said to the children, “Pharaoh is even now in the Court of Honour. Now, don’t forget to be overcome with respect and admiration. It won’t do any harm if you fall flat on your faces. And whatever you do, don’t speak until you’re spoken to.”

“There used to be that rule in our country,” said Robert, “when my father was a little boy.”

At the outer end of the great hall a crowd of people were arguing with and even shoving the Guards, who seemed to make it a rule not to let anyone through unless they were bribed to do it. The children heard several promises of the utmost richness, and wondered whether they would ever be kept.

All round the hall were pillars of painted wood. The roof was of cedar, gorgeously inlaid. About half-way up the hall was a wide, shallow step that went right across the hall; then a little farther on another; and then a steep flight of narrower steps, leading right up to the throne on which Pharaoh sat. He sat there very splendid, his red and white double crown on his head, and his sceptre in his hand. The throne had a canopy of wood and wooden pillars painted in bright colours. On a low, broad bench that ran all round the hall sat the friends, relatives, and courtiers of the King, leaning on richly-covered cushions.

The priest led the children up the steps till they all stood before the throne; and then, suddenly, he fell on his face with hands outstretched. The others did the same, Anthea falling very carefully because of the Psammead.

“Raise them,” said the voice of Pharaoh, “that they may speak to me.”

The officers of the King’s household raised them.

“Who are these strangers?” Pharaoh asked, and added very crossly, “And what do you mean, Rekh-marā, by daring to come into my presence while your innocence is not established?”

“Oh, great King,” said the young priest, “you are the very image of Rā, and the likeness of his son Horus in every respect. You know the thoughts of the hearts of the gods and of men, and you have divined that these strangers are the children of the children of the vile and conquered Kings of the Empire where the sun never sets. They know a magic not known to the Egyptians. And they come with gifts in their hands as tribute to Pharaoh, in whose heart is the wisdom of the gods, and on his lips their truth.”

“That is all very well,” said Pharaoh, “but where are the gifts?”

The children, bowing as well as they could in their embarrassment at finding themselves the centre of interest in a circle more grand, more golden and more highly coloured than they could have imagined possible, pulled out the padlock, the Nécessaire, and the tie-clip. “But it’s not tribute all the same,” Cyril muttered. “England doesn’t pay tribute!”

Pharaoh examined all the things with great interest when the chief of the household had taken them up to him. “Deliver them to the Keeper of the Treasury,” he said to one near him. And to the children he said—

“A small tribute, truly, but strange, and not without worth. And the magic, O Rekh-marā?”

“These unworthy sons of a conquered nation...” began Rekh-marā.

“Nothing of the kind!” Cyril whispered angrily.

“... of a vile and conquered nation, can make fire to spring from dry wood—in the sight of all.”

“I should jolly well like to see them do it,” said Pharaoh, just as the priest had done.

So Cyril, without more ado, did it.

“Do more magic,” said the King, with simple appreciation.

“He cannot do any more magic,” said Anthea suddenly, and all eyes were turned on her, “because of the voice of the free people who are shouting for bread and onions and beer and a long mid-day rest. If the people had what they wanted, he could do more.”

“A rude-spoken girl,” said Pharaoh. “But give the dogs what they want,” he said, without turning his head. “Let them have their rest and their extra rations. There are plenty of slaves to work.”

A richly-dressed official hurried out.

“You will be the idol of the people,” Rekh-marā whispered joyously; “the Temple of Amen will not contain their offerings.”

Cyril struck another match, and all the court was overwhelmed with delight and wonder. And when Cyril took the candle from his pocket and lighted it with the match, and then held the burning candle up before the King the enthusiasm knew no bounds.

“Oh, greatest of all, before whom sun and moon and stars bow down,” said Rekh-marā insinuatingly, “am I pardoned? Is my innocence made plain?”

“As plain as it ever will be, I daresay,” said Pharaoh shortly. “Get along with you. You are pardoned. Go in