The Story of the Amulet - E. Nesbit (smart books to read TXT) 📗

it. Anthea found it difficult to keep the Psammead from being squeezed very uncomfortably.

The crowd swept through the streets of dull-looking houses with few windows, very high up, across the market where people were not buying but exchanging goods. In a momentary pause Robert saw a basket of onions exchanged for a hair comb and five fish for a string of beads. The people in the market seemed better off than those in the crowd; they had finer clothes, and more of them. They were the kind of people who, nowadays, would have lived at Brixton or Brockley.

“What’s the trouble now?” a languid, large-eyed lady in a crimped, half-transparent linen dress, with her black hair very much braided and puffed out, asked of a date-seller.

“Oh, the workingmen⁠—discontented as usual,” the man answered. “Listen to them. Anyone would think it mattered whether they had a little more or less to eat. Dregs of society!” said the date-seller.

“Scum!” said the lady.

“And I’ve heard that before, too,” said Robert.

At that moment the voice of the crowd changed, from anger to doubt, from doubt to fear. There were other voices shouting; they shouted defiance and menace, and they came nearer very quickly. There was the 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 marketplace 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