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

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 windblown 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. Weatherworn 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 said, “My magic will not bring up great waves,