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Joseph A. Altsheler - "The Scouts of the Valley"

Jerome K. Jerome - "John Ingerfield and Other Stories"

Oscar Wilde - "An Ideal Husband"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre Buch 1"

The Story of the Amulet

E >> E. Nesbit >> The Story of the Amulet




No one said a word about it to anyone else. I think I have
explained before that business men do not like it to be known
that they have been dreaming in business hours. Especially mad
dreams including such dreadful things as hungry people getting
dinners, and the destruction of the Stock Exchange.


The children were in the dining-room at 300, Fitzroy Street, pale
and trembling. The Psammead crawled out of the embroidered bag,
and lay flat on the table, its leg stretched out, looking more
like a dead hare than anything else.

'Thank Goodness that's over,' said Anthea, drawing a deep breath.

'She won't come back, will she?' asked Jane tremulously.

'No,' said Cyril. 'She's thousands of years ago. But we spent a
whole precious pound on her. It'll take all our pocket-money for
ages to pay that back.'

'Not if it was ALL a dream,' said Robert.

'The wish said ALL a dream, you know, Panther; you cut up and ask
if he lent you anything.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Anthea politely, following the sound of
her knock into the presence of the learned gentleman, 'I'm so
sorry to trouble you, but DID you lend me a pound today?'

'No,' said he, looking kindly at her through his spectacles.
'But it's extraordinary that you should ask me, for I dozed for a
few moments this afternoon, a thing I very rarely do, and I
dreamed quite distinctly that you brought me a ring that you said
belonged to the Queen of Babylon, and that I lent you a sovereign
and that you left one of the Queen's rings here. The ring was a
magnificent specimen.' He sighed. 'I wish it hadn't been a
dream,' he said smiling. He was really learning to smile quite
nicely.

Anthea could not be too thankful that the Psammead was not there
to grant his wish.



CHAPTER 9

ATLANTIS

You will understand that the adventure of the Babylonian queen in
London was the only one that had occupied any time at all. But
the children's time was very fully taken up by talking over all
the wonderful things seen and done in the Past, where, by the
power of the Amulet, they seemed to spend hours and hours, only
to find when they got back to London that the whole thing had
been briefer than a lightning flash.

They talked of the Past at their meals, in their walks, in the
dining-room, in the first-floor drawing-room, but most of all on
the stairs. It was an old house; it had once been a fashionable
one, and was a fine one still. The banister rails of the stairs
were excellent for sliding down, and in the corners of the
landings were big alcoves that had once held graceful statues,
and now quite often held the graceful forms of Cyril, Robert,
Anthea, and Jane.

One day Cyril and Robert in tight white underclothing had spent a
pleasant hour in reproducing the attitudes of statues seen either
in the British Museum, or in Father's big photograph book. But
the show ended abruptly because Robert wanted to be the Venus of
Milo, and for this purpose pulled at the sheet which served for
drapery at the very moment when Cyril, looking really quite like
the Discobolos--with a gold and white saucer for the disc--was
standing on one foot, and under that one foot was the sheet.

Of course the Discobolos and his disc and the would-be Venus came
down together, and everyone was a good deal hurt, especially the
saucer, which would never be the same again, however neatly one
might join its uneven bits with Seccotine or the white of an egg.

'I hope you're satisfied,' said Cyril, holding his head where a
large lump was rising.

'Quite, thanks,' said Robert bitterly. His thumb had caught in
the banisters and bent itself back almost to breaking point.

'I AM so sorry, poor, dear Squirrel,' said Anthea; 'and you were
looking so lovely. I'll get a wet rag. Bobs, go and hold your
hand under the hot-water tap. It's what ballet girls do with
their legs when they hurt them. I saw it in a book.'

'What book?' said Robert disagreeably. But he went.

When he came back Cyril's head had been bandaged by his sisters,
and he had been brought to the state of mind where he was able
reluctantly to admit that he supposed Robert hadn't done it on
purpose.

Robert replying with equal suavity, Anthea hastened to lead the
talk away from the accident.

'I suppose you don't feel like going anywhere through the
Amulet,' she said.

'Egypt!' said Jane promptly. 'I want to see the pussy cats.'

'Not me--too hot,' said Cyril. 'It's about as much as I can
stand here--let alone Egypt.' It was indeed, hot, even on the
second landing, which was the coolest place in the house. 'Let's
go to the North Pole.'

'I don't suppose the Amulet was ever there--and we might get our
fingers frost-bitten so that we could never hold it up to get
home again. No thanks,' said Robert.

'I say,' said Jane, 'let's get the Psammead and ask its advice.
It will like us asking, even if we don't take it.'

The Psammead was brought up in its green silk embroidered bag,
but before it could be asked anything the door of the learned
gentleman's room opened and the voice of the visitor who had been
lunching with him was heard on the stairs. He seemed to be
speaking with the door handle in his hand.

'You see a doctor, old boy,' he said; 'all that about
thought-transference is just simply twaddle. You've been
over-working. Take a holiday. Go to Dieppe.'

'I'd rather go to Babylon,' said the learned gentleman.

'I wish you'd go to Atlantis some time, while we're about it, so
as to give me some tips for my Nineteenth Century article when
you come home.'

'I wish I could,' said the voice of the learned gentleman.
'Goodbye. Take care of yourself.'

The door was banged, and the visitor came smiling down the
stairs--a stout, prosperous, big man. The children had to get up
to let him pass.

'Hullo, Kiddies,' he said, glancing at the bandages on the head
of Cyril and the hand of Robert, 'been in the wars?'

'It's all right,' said Cyril. 'I say, what was that Atlantic
place you wanted him to go to? We couldn't help hearing you
talk.'

'You talk so VERY loud, you see,' said Jane soothingly.

'Atlantis,' said the visitor, 'the lost Atlantis, garden of the
Hesperides. Great continent--disappeared in the sea. You can
read about it in Plato.'

'Thank you,' said Cyril doubtfully.

'Were there any Amulets there?' asked Anthea, made anxious by a
sudden thought.

'Hundreds, I should think. So HE'S been talking to you?'

'Yes, often. He's very kind to us. We like him awfully.'

'Well, what he wants is a holiday; you persuade him to take one.
What he wants is a change of scene. You see, his head is crusted
so thickly inside with knowledge about Egypt and Assyria and
things that you can't hammer anything into it unless you keep
hard at it all day long for days and days. And I haven't time.
But you live in the house. You can hammer almost incessantly.
Just try your hands, will you? Right. So long!'

He went down the stairs three at a time, and Jane remarked that
he was a nice man, and she thought he had little girls of his
own.

'I should like to have them to play with,' she added pensively.

The three elder ones exchanged glances. Cyril nodded.

'All right. LET'S go to Atlantis,' he said.

'Let's go to Atlantis and take the learned gentleman with us,'
said Anthea; 'he'll think it's a dream, afterwards, but it'll
certainly be a change of scene.'

'Why not take him to nice Egypt?' asked Jane.

'Too hot,' said Cyril shortly.

'Or Babylon, where he wants to go?'

'I've had enough of Babylon,' said Robert, 'at least for the
present. And so have the others. I don't know why,' he added,
forestalling the question on Jane's lips, 'but somehow we have.
Squirrel, let's take off these beastly bandages and get into
flannels. We can't go in our unders.'

'He WISHED to go to Atlantis, so he's got to go some time; and he
might as well go with us,' said Anthea.

This was how it was that the learned gentleman, permitting
himself a few moments of relaxation in his chair, after the
fatigue of listening to opinions (about Atlantis and many other
things) with which he did not at all agree, opened his eyes to
find his four young friends standing in front of him in a row.

'Will you come,' said Anthea, 'to Atlantis with us?'

'To know that you are dreaming shows that the dream is nearly at
an end,' he told himself; 'or perhaps it's only a game, like "How
many miles to Babylon?".' So he said aloud: 'Thank you very
much, but I have only a quarter of an hour to spare.'

'It doesn't take any time,' said Cyril; 'time is only a mode of
thought, you know, and you've got to go some time, so why not
with us?'

'Very well,' said the learned gentleman, now quite certain that
he was dreaming.

Anthea held out her soft, pink hand. He took it. She pulled him
gently to his feet. Jane held up the Amulet.

'To just outside Atlantis,' said Cyril, and Jane said the Name of
Power.

'You owl!' said Robert, 'it's an island. Outside an island's all
water.'

'I won't go. I WON'T,' said the Psammead, kicking and struggling
in its bag.

But already the Amulet had grown to a great arch. Cyril pushed
the learned gentleman, as undoubtedly the first-born, through the
arch--not into water, but on to a wooden floor, out of doors.
The others followed. The Amulet grew smaller again, and there
they all were, standing on the deck of a ship whose sailors were
busy making her fast with chains to rings on a white quay-side.
The rings and the chains were of a metal that shone red-yellow
like gold.

Everyone on the ship seemed too busy at first to notice the group
of newcomers from Fitzroy Street. Those who seemed to be
officers were shouting orders to the men.

They stood and looked across the wide quay to the town that rose
beyond it. What they saw was the most beautiful sight any of
them had ever seen--or ever dreamed of.

The blue sea sparkled in soft sunlight; little white-capped waves
broke softly against the marble breakwaters that guarded the
shipping of a great city from the wilderness of winter winds and
seas. The quay was of marble, white and sparkling with a veining
bright as gold. The city was of marble, red and white. The
greater buildings that seemed to be temples and palaces were
roofed with what looked like gold and silver, but most of the
roofs were of copper that glowed golden-red on the houses on the
hills among which the city stood, and shaded into marvellous
tints of green and blue and purple where they had been touched by
the salt sea spray and the fumes of the dyeing and smelting works
of the lower town.

Broad and magnificent flights of marble stairs led up from the
quay to a sort of terrace that seemed to run along for miles, and
beyond rose the town built on a hill.

The learned gentleman drew a long breath. 'Wonderful!' he said,
'wonderful!'

'I say, Mr--what's your name,' said Robert. 'He means,' said
Anthea, with gentle politeness, 'that we never can remember your
name. I know it's Mr De Something.'

'When I was your age I was called Jimmy,' he said timidly.
'Would you mind? I should feel more at home in a dream like this
if I-- Anything that made me seem more like one of you.'

'Thank you--Jimmy,' said Anthea with an effort. It seemed such a
cheek to be saying Jimmy to a grown-up man. 'Jimmy, DEAR,' she
added, with no effort at all. Jimmy smiled and looked pleased.

But now the ship was made fast, and the Captain had time to
notice other things. He came towards them, and he was dressed in
the best of all possible dresses for the seafaring life.

'What are you doing here?' he asked rather fiercely. 'Do you
come to bless or to curse?'

'To bless, of course,' said Cyril. 'I'm sorry if it annoys you,
but we're here by magic. We come from the land of the
sun-rising,' he went on explanatorily.

'I see,' said the Captain; no one had expected that he would. 'I
didn't notice at first, but of course I hope you're a good omen.
It's needed. And this,' he pointed to the learned gentleman,
'your slave, I presume?'

'Not at all,' said Anthea; 'he's a very great man. A sage, don't
they call it? And we want to see all your beautiful city, and
your temples and things, and then we shall go back, and he will
tell his friend, and his friend will write a book about it.'

'What,' asked the Captain, fingering a rope, 'is a book?'

'A record--something written, or,' she added hastily, remembering
the Babylonian writing, 'or engraved.'

Some sudden impulse of confidence made Jane pluck the Amulet from
the neck of her frock.

'Like this,' she said.

The Captain looked at it curiously, but, the other three were
relieved to notice, without any of that overwhelming interest
which the mere name of it had roused in Egypt and Babylon.

'The stone is of our country,' he said; 'and that which is
engraved on it, it is like our writing, but I cannot read it.
What is the name of your sage?'

'Ji-jimmy,' said Anthea hesitatingly.

The Captain repeated, 'Ji-jimmy. Will you land?' he added. 'And
shall I lead you to the Kings?'

'Look here,' said Robert, 'does your King hate strangers?'

'Our Kings are ten,' said the Captain, 'and the Royal line,
unbroken from Poseidon, the father of us all, has the noble
tradition to do honour to strangers if they come in peace.'

'Then lead on, please,' said Robert, 'though I SHOULD like to see
all over your beautiful ship, and sail about in her.'

'That shall be later,' said the Captain; 'just now we're afraid
of a storm--do you notice that odd rumbling?'

'That's nothing, master,' said an old sailor who stood near;
'it's the pilchards coming in, that's all.'

'Too loud,' said the Captain.

There was a rather anxious pause; then the Captain stepped on to
the quay, and the others followed him.

'Do talk to him--Jimmy,' said Anthea as they went; 'you can find
out all sorts of things for your friend's book.'

'Please excuse me,' he said earnestly. 'If I talk I shall wake
up; and besides, I can't understand what he says.'

No one else could think of anything to say, so that it was in
complete silence that they followed the Captain up the marble
steps and through the streets of the town. There were streets
and shops and houses and markets.

'It's just like Babylon,' whispered Jane, 'only everything's
perfectly different.'

'It's a great comfort the ten Kings have been properly brought
up--to be kind to strangers,' Anthea whispered to Cyril.

'Yes,' he said, 'no deepest dungeons here.'

There were no horses or chariots in the street, but there were
handcarts and low trolleys running on thick log-wheels, and
porters carrying packets on their heads, and a good many of the
people were riding on what looked like elephants, only the great
beasts were hairy, and they had not that mild expression we are
accustomed to meet on the faces of the elephants at the Zoo.

'Mammoths!' murmured the learned gentleman, and stumbled over a
loose stone.

The people in the streets kept crowding round them as they went
along, but the Captain always dispersed the crowd before it grew
uncomfortably thick by saying--

'Children of the Sun God and their High Priest--come to bless the
City.'

And then the people would draw back with a low murmur that
sounded like a suppressed cheer.

Many of the buildings were covered with gold, but the gold on the
bigger buildings was of a different colour, and they had sorts of
steeples of burnished silver rising above them.

'Are all these houses real gold?' asked Jane.

'The temples are covered with gold, of course,' answered the
Captain, 'but the houses are only oricalchum. It's not quite so
expensive.'

The learned gentleman, now very pale, stumbled along in a dazed
way, repeating:

'Oricalchum--oricalchum.'

'Don't be frightened,' said Anthea; 'we can get home in a minute,
just by holding up the charm. Would you rather go back now? We
could easily come some other day without you.'

'Oh, no, no,' he pleaded fervently; 'let the dream go on.
Please, please do.'

'The High Ji-jimmy is perhaps weary with his magic journey,' said
the Captain, noticing the blundering walk of the learned
gentleman; 'and we are yet very far from the Great Temple, where
today the Kings make sacrifice.'

He stopped at the gate of a great enclosure. It seemed to be a
sort of park, for trees showed high above its brazen wall.

The party waited, and almost at once the Captain came back with
one of the hairy elephants and begged them to mount.

This they did.

It was a glorious ride. The elephant at the Zoo--to ride on him
is also glorious, but he goes such a very little way, and then he
goes back again, which is always dull. But this great hairy
beast went on and on and on along streets and through squares and
gardens. It was a glorious city; almost everything was built of
marble, red, or white, or black. Every now and then the party
crossed a bridge.

It was not till they had climbed to the hill which is the centre
of the town that they saw that the whole city was divided into
twenty circles, alternately land and water, and over each of the
water circles were the bridges by which they had come.

And now they were in a great square. A vast building filled up
one side of it; it was overlaid with gold, and had a dome of
silver. The rest of the buildings round the square were of
oricalchum. And it looked more splendid than you can possibly
imagine, standing up bold and shining in the sunlight.

'You would like a bath,' said the Captain, as the hairy elephant
went clumsily down on his knees. 'It's customary, you know,
before entering the Presence. We have baths for men, women,
horses, and cattle. The High Class Baths are here. Our Father
Poseidon gave us a spring of hot water and one of cold.'

The children had never before bathed in baths of gold.

'It feels very splendid,' said Cyril, splashing.

'At least, of course, it's not gold; it's or--what's its name,'
said Robert. 'Hand over that towel.'

The bathing hall had several great pools sunk below the level of
the floor; one went down to them by steps.

'Jimmy,' said Anthea timidly, when, very clean and
boiled-looking, they all met in the flowery courtyard of the
Public, 'don't you think all this seems much more like NOW than
Babylon or Egypt--? Oh, I forgot, you've never been there.'

'I know a little of those nations, however,' said he, 'and I
quite agree with you. A most discerning remark--my dear,' he
added awkwardly; 'this city certainly seems to indicate a far
higher level of civilization than the Egyptian or Babylonish,
and--'

'Follow me,' said the Captain. 'Now, boys, get out of the way.'
He pushed through a little crowd of boys who were playing with
dried chestnuts fastened to a string.

'Ginger!' remarked Robert, 'they're playing conkers, just like
the kids in Kentish Town Road!'

They could see now that three walls surrounded the island on
which they were. The outermost wall was of brass, the Captain
told them; the next, which looked like silver, was covered with
tin; and the innermost one was of oricalchum.

And right in the middle was a wall of gold, with golden towers
and gates.

'Behold the Temples of Poseidon,' said the Captain. 'It is not
lawful for me to enter. I will await your return here.'

He told them what they ought to say, and the five people from
Fitzroy Street took hands and went forward. The golden gates
slowly opened.

'We are the children of the Sun,' said Cyril, as he had been
told, 'and our High Priest, at least that's what the Captain
calls him. We have a different name for him at home.' 'What is
his name?' asked a white-robed man who stood in the doorway with
his arms extended.

'Ji-jimmy,' replied Cyril, and he hesitated as Anthea had done.
It really did seem to be taking a great liberty with so learned a
gentleman. 'And we have come to speak with your Kings in the
Temple of Poseidon--does that word sound right?' he whispered
anxiously.

'Quite,' said the learned gentleman. 'It's very odd I can
understand what you say to them, but not what they say to you.'

'The Queen of Babylon found that too,' said Cyril; 'it's part of
the magic.'

'Oh, what a dream!' said the learned gentleman.

The white-robed priest had been joined by others, and all were
bowing low.

'Enter,' he said, 'enter, Children of the Sun, with your High
Ji-jimmy.'

In an inner courtyard stood the Temple--all of silver, with gold
pinnacles and doors, and twenty enormous statues in bright gold
of men and women. Also an immense pillar of the other precious
yellow metal.

They went through the doors, and the priest led them up a stair
into a gallery from which they could look down on to the glorious
place.

'The ten Kings are even now choosing the bull. It is not lawful
for me to behold,' said the priest, and fell face downward on the
floor outside the gallery. The children looked down.

The roof was of ivory adorned with the three precious metals, and
the walls were lined with the favourite oricalchum.

At the far end of the Temple was a statue group, the like of
which no one living has ever seen.

It was of gold, and the head of the chief figure reached to the
roof. That figure was Poseidon, the Father of the City. He
stood in a great chariot drawn by six enormous horses, and round
about it were a hundred mermaids riding on dolphins.

Ten men, splendidly dressed and armed only with sticks and ropes,
were trying to capture one of some fifteen bulls who ran this way
and that about the floor of the Temple. The children held their
breath, for the bulls looked dangerous, and the great horned
heads were swinging more and more wildly.

Anthea did not like looking at the bulls. She looked about the
gallery, and noticed that another staircase led up from it to a
still higher storey; also that a door led out into the open air,
where there seemed to be a balcony.

So that when a shout went up and Robert whispered, 'Got him,' and
she looked down and saw the herd of bulls being driven out of the
Temple by whips, and the ten Kings following, one of them
spurring with his stick a black bull that writhed and fought in
the grip of a lasso, she answered the boy's agitated, 'Now we
shan't see anything more,' with--

'Yes we can, there's an outside balcony.'

So they crowded out.

But very soon the girls crept back.

'I don't like sacrifices,' Jane said. So she and Anthea went and
talked to the priest, who was no longer lying on his face, but
sitting on the top step mopping his forehead with his robe, for
it was a hot day.

'It's a special sacrifice,' he said; 'usually it's only done on
the justice days every five years and six years alternately. And
then they drink the cup of wine with some of the bull's blood in
it, and swear to judge truly. And they wear the sacred blue
robe, and put out all the Temple fires. But this today is
because the City's so upset by the odd noises from the sea, and
the god inside the big mountain speaking with his thunder-voice.
But all that's happened so often before. If anything could make
ME uneasy it wouldn't be THAT.'

'What would it be?' asked Jane kindly.

'It would be the Lemmings.'

'Who are they--enemies?'

'They're a sort of rat; and every year they come swimming over
from the country that no man knows, and stay here awhile, and
then swim away. This year they haven't come. You know rats
won't stay on a ship that's going to be wrecked. If anything
horrible were going to happen to us, it's my belief those
Lemmings would know; and that may be why they've fought shy of
us.'

'What do you call this country?' asked the Psammead, suddenly
putting its head out of its bag.

'Atlantis,' said the priest.

'Then I advise you to get on to the highest ground you can find.
I remember hearing something about a flood here. Look here,
you'--it turned to Anthea; 'let's get home. The prospect's too
wet for my whiskers.' The girls obediently went to find their
brothers, who were leaning on the balcony railings.

'Where's the learned gentleman?' asked Anthea.

'There he is--below,' said the priest, who had come with them.
'Your High Ji-jimmy is with the Kings.'

The ten Kings were no longer alone. The learned gentleman--no
one had noticed how he got there--stood with them on the steps of
an altar, on which lay the dead body of the black bull. All the
rest of the courtyard was thick with people, seemingly of all
classes, and all were shouting, 'The sea--the sea!'

'Be calm,' said the most kingly of the Kings, he who had lassoed
the bull. 'Our town is strong against the thunders of the sea
and of the sky!'

'I want to go home,' whined the Psammead.

'We can't go without HIM,' said Anthea firmly.

'Jimmy,' she called, 'Jimmy!' and waved to him. He heard her,
and began to come towards her through the crowd. They could see
from the balcony the sea-captain edging his way out from among
the people. And his face was dead white, like paper.

'To the hills!' he cried in a loud and terrible voice. And above
his voice came another voice, louder, more terrible--the voice of
the sea.

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