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

catch at Sidon and then, of course, there’s the kind that’s used for the dibaptha. But that’s quite different. It’s—”

“Hold your tongue!” shouted the skipper. And the man held it.

The laden boat was rowed slowly round the end of the island, and was made fast in one of the two great harbours that lay inside a long breakwater. The harbour was full of all sorts of ships, so that Cyril and Robert enjoyed themselves much more than their sisters. The breakwater and the quays were heaped with bales and baskets, and crowded with slaves and sailors. Farther along some men were practising diving.

“That’s jolly good,” said Robert, as a naked brown body cleft the water.

“I should think so,” said the skipper. “The pearl-divers of Persia are not more skilful. Why, we’ve got a fresh-water spring that comes out at the 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 for ever! 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 bell-flowers 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,” said Jane, “and donkey ride every day.”

Everyone was feeling very jolly. Even the Egyptian looked pleasanter than usual. And then, quite suddenly, the skipper came back with a joyous smile. With him came the master of the house. He looked steadily at the children and nodded twice.

“Yes,” he said, “my steward will pay you the price. But I shall not pay at that high rate for the Egyptian dog.”

The two passed on.

“This,” said the Egyptian, “is a pretty kettle of fish.”

“What is?” asked all the children at once.

“Our present position,” said Rekh-marā. “Our seafaring friend,” he added, “has sold us all for slaves!”

A hasty council succeeded the shock of this announcement. The Priest was allowed to take part in it. His advice was “stay”, because they were in no danger, and the Amulet in its completeness must be somewhere near, or, of course, they could not have come to that place at all. And after some discussion they agreed to this.

The children were treated more as guests than as slaves, but the Egyptian was sent to the kitchen and made to work.

Pheles, the master of the house, went off that very evening, by the King’s orders, to start on another voyage. And when he was gone his wife found the children amusing company, and kept them talking and singing and dancing till quite late. “To distract my mind from my sorrows,” she said.

“I do like being a slave,” remarked Jane cheerfully, as they curled up on the big, soft cushions that were to be their beds.

It was black night when they were awakened, each by a hand passed softly over its face, and a low voice that whispered—

“Be quiet, or all is lost.”

So they were quiet.

“It’s me, Rekh-marā, the Priest of Amen,” said the whisperer. “The man who brought us has gone to sea again, and he has taken my Amulet from me by force, and I know no magic to get it back. Is there magic for that in the Amulet you bear?”

Everyone was instantly awake by now.

“We can go after him,” said Cyril, leaping up; “but he might take ours as well; or he might be angry with us for following him.”

“I’ll see to that,” said the Egyptian in the dark. “Hide your Amulet well.”

There in the deep blackness of that room in the Tyrian country house the Amulet was once more held up and the word spoken.

All passed through on to a ship that tossed and tumbled on a wind-blown sea. They crouched together there till morning, and Jane and Cyril were not at all well. When the dawn showed, dove-coloured, across the steely waves, they stood up as well as they could for the tumbling of the ship. Pheles, that hardy sailor and adventurer, turned quite pale when he turned round suddenly and saw them.

“Well!” he said, “well, I never did!”

“Master,” said the Egyptian, bowing low, and that was even more difficult than standing up, “we are here by the magic of the sacred Amulet that hangs round your neck.”

“I never did!” repeated Pheles. “Well, well!”

“What port is the ship bound for?” asked Robert, with a nautical air.

But Pheles said, “Are you a navigator?” Robert had to own that he was not.

“Then,” said Pheles, “I don’t mind telling you that we’re bound for the Tin Isles. Tyre alone knows where the Tin Isles are. It is a splendid secret we keep from all the world. It is as great a thing to us as your magic to you.”

He spoke in quite a new voice, and seemed to respect both the children and the Amulet a good deal more than he had done before.

“The King sent you, didn’t he?” said Jane.

“Yes,” answered Pheles, “he bade me set sail with half a score brave gentlemen and this crew. You shall go with us, and see many wonders.” He bowed and left them.

“What are we going to do now?” said Robert, when Pheles had caused them to be left along with a breakfast of dried fruits and a sort of hard biscuit.

“Wait till he lands in the Tin Isles,” said Rekh-marā, “then we can get the barbarians to help us. We will attack him by night and tear the sacred Amulet from his accursed heathen neck,” he added, grinding his teeth.

“When shall we get to the Tin Isles?” asked Jane.

“Oh—six months, perhaps, or a year,” said the Egyptian cheerfully.

“A year of this?” cried Jane, and Cyril, who was still feeling far too unwell to care about breakfast, hugged himself miserably and shuddered.

It was Robert who said—

“Look here, we can shorten that year. Jane, out with the Amulet! Wish that we were where the Amulet will be when the ship is twenty miles from the Tin Island. That’ll give us time to mature our plans.”

It was done—the work of a moment—and there they were on the same ship, between grey northern sky and grey northern sea. The sun was setting in a pale yellow line. It was the same ship, but it was changed, and so were the crew. Weather-worn and dirty were the sailors, and their clothes torn and ragged. And the children saw that, of course, though they had skipped the nine months, the ship had had to live through them. Pheles looked thinner, and his face was rugged and anxious.

“Ha!” he cried, “the charm has brought you back! I have prayed to it daily these nine months—and now you are here? Have you no magic that can help?”

“What is your need?” asked the Egyptian quietly.

“I need a great wave that shall whelm away the foreign ship that follows us. A month ago it lay in wait for us, by the pillars of the gods, and it follows, follows, to find out the secret of Tyre—the place of the Tin Islands. If I could steer by night I could escape them yet, but tonight there will be no stars.”

“My magic will not serve you here,” said the Egyptian.

But Robert