by Edith Nesbit
She glanced at the mummy-case; IT certainly did not look as though it would ever think of reminding people of their meals.
The learned gentleman looked at her for a moment before he said —
‘Thank you, my dear. It was a kindly thought. No, I haven’t anyone to remind me about things like that.’
He sighed, and looked at the chop.
‘It looks very nasty,’ said Anthea.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it does. I’ll eat it immediately, before I forget.’
As he ate it he sighed more than once. Perhaps because the chop was nasty, perhaps because he longed for the charm which the children did not want to sell, perhaps because it was so long since anyone cared whether he ate his chops or forgot them.
Anthea caught the others at the stair-foot. They woke the Psammead, and it taught them exactly how to use the word of power, and to make the charm speak. I am not going to tell you how this is done, because you might try to do it. And for you any such trying would be almost sure to end in disappointment. Because in the first place it is a thousand million to one against your ever getting hold of the right sort of charm, and if you did, there would be hardly any chance at all of your finding a learned gentleman clever enough and kind enough to read the word for you.
The children and the Psammead crouched in a circle on the floor — in the girls’ bedroom, because in the parlour they might have been interrupted by old Nurse’s coming in to lay the cloth for tea — and the charm was put in the middle of the circle.
The sun shone splendidly outside, and the room was very light. Through the open window came the hum and rattle of London, and in the street below they could hear the voice of the milkman.
When all was ready, the Psammead signed to Anthea to say the word. And she said it. Instantly the whole light of all the world seemed to go out. The room was dark. The world outside was dark — darker than the darkest night that ever was. And all the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence deeper than any silence you have ever even dreamed of imagining. It was like being suddenly deaf and blind, only darker and quieter even than that.
But before the children had got over the sudden shock of it enough to be frightened, a faint, beautiful light began to show in the middle of the circle, and at the same moment a faint, beautiful voice began to speak. The light was too small for one to see anything by, and the voice was too small for you to hear what it said. You could just see the light and just hear the voice.
But the light grew stronger. It was greeny, like glow-worms’ lamps, and it grew and grew till it was as though thousands and thousands of glow-worms were signalling to their winged sweethearts from the middle of the circle. And the voice grew, not so much in loudness as in sweetness (though it grew louder, too), till it was so sweet that you wanted to cry with pleasure just at the sound of it. It was like nightingales, and the sea, and the fiddle, and the voice of your mother when you have been a long time away, and she meets you at the door when you get home.
And the voice said —
‘Speak. What is it that you would hear?’
I cannot tell you what language the voice used. I only know that everyone present understood it perfectly. If you come to think of it, there must be some language that everyone could understand, if we only knew what it was. Nor can I tell you how the charm spoke, nor whether it was the charm that spoke, or some presence in the charm. The children could not have told you either. Indeed, they could not look at the charm while it was speaking, because the light was too bright. They looked instead at the green radiance on the faded Kidderminster carpet at the edge of the circle. They all felt very quiet, and not inclined to ask questions or fidget with their feet. For this was not like the things that had happened in the country when the Psammead had given them their wishes. That had been funny somehow, and this was not. It was something like Arabian Nights magic, and something like being in church. No one cared to speak.
It was Cyril who said at last —
‘Please we want to know where the other half of the charm is.’
‘The part of the Amulet which is lost,’ said the beautiful voice, ‘was broken and ground into the dust of the shrine that held it. It and the pin that joined the two halves are themselves dust, and the dust is scattered over many lands and sunk in many seas.’
‘Oh, I say!’ murmured Robert, and a blank silence fell. ‘Then it’s all up?’ said Cyril at last; ‘it’s no use our looking for a thing that’s smashed into dust, and the dust scattered all over the place.’
‘If you would find it,’ said the voice, ‘You must seek it where it still is, perfect as ever.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Cyril.
‘In the Past you may find it,’ said the voice.
‘I wish we MAY find it,’ said Cyril.
The Psammead whispered crossly, ‘Don’t you understand? The thing existed in the Past. If you were in the Past, too, you could find it. It’s very difficult to make you understand things. Time and space are only forms of thought.’
‘I see,’ said Cyril.
‘No, you don’t,’ said the Psammead, ‘and it doesn’t matter if you don’t, either. What I mean is that if you were only made the right way, you could see everything happening in the same place at the same time. Now do you see?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Anthea; ‘I’m sorry I’m so stupid.’
‘Well, at any rate, you see this. That lost half of the Amulet is in the Past. Therefore it’s in the Past we must look for it. I mustn’t speak to the charm myself. Ask it things! Find out!’
‘Where can we find the other part of you?’ asked Cyril obediently.
‘In the Past,’ said the voice.
‘What part of the Past?’
‘I may not tell you. If you will choose a time, I will take you to the place that then held it. You yourselves must find it.’
‘When did you see it last?’ asked Anthea—’I mean, when was it taken away from you?’
The beautiful voice answered —
‘That was thousands of years ago. The Amulet was perfect then, and lay in a shrine, the last of many shrines, and I worked wonders. Then came strange men with strange weapons and destroyed my shrine, and the Amulet they bore away with many captives. But of these, one, my priest, knew the word of power, and spoke it for me, so that the Amulet became invisible, and thus returned to my shrine, but the shrine was broken down, and ere any magic could rebuild it one spoke a word before which my power bowed down and was still. And the Amulet lay there, still perfect, but enslaved. Then one coming with stones to rebuild the shrine, dropped a hewn stone on the Amulet as it lay, and one half was sundered from the other. I had no power to seek for that which was lost. And there being none to speak the word of power, I could not rejoin it. So the Amulet lay in the dust of the desert many thousand years, and at last came a small man, a conqueror with an army, and after him a crowd of men who sought to seem wise, and one of these found half the Amulet and brought it to this land. But none could read the name. So I lay still. And this man dying and his son after him, the Amulet was sold by those who came after to a merchant, and from him you bought it, and it is here, and now, the name of power having been spoken, I also am here.’
This is what the voice said. I think it must have meant Napoleon by the small man, the conqueror. Because I know I have been told that he took an army to Egypt, and that afterwards a lot of wise people went grubbing in the sand, and fished up all sorts of wonderful things, older than you would think possible. And of these I believe this charm to have been one, and the most wonderful one of all.
Everyone listened: and everyone tried to think. It is not easy to do this clearly when you have been listening to the kind of talk I have told you about.
At last Robert said —
‘Can you take us into the Past — to the shrine where you and the other thing were together. If you could take us there, we might find the other part still there after all these thousands of years.’
>
‘Still there? silly!’ said Cyril. ‘Don’t you see, if we go back into the Past it won’t be thousands of years ago. It will be NOW for us — won’t it?’ He appealed to the Psammead, who said —
‘You’re not so far off the idea as you usually are!’
‘Well,’ said Anthea, ‘will you take us back to when there was a shrine and you were safe in it — all of you?’
‘Yes,’ said the voice. ‘You must hold me up, and speak the word of power, and one by one, beginning with the first-born, you shall pass through me into the Past. But let the last that passes be the one that holds me, and let him not lose his hold, lest you lose me, and so remain in the Past for ever.’
‘That’s a nasty idea,’ said Robert.
‘When you desire to return,’ the beautiful voice went on, ‘hold me up towards the East, and speak the word. Then, passing through me, you shall return to this time and it shall be the present to you.’
‘But how—’ A bell rang loudly.
‘Oh crikey!’ exclaimed Robert, ‘that’s tea! Will you please make it proper daylight again so that we can go down. And thank you so much for all your kindness.’
‘We’ve enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you!’ added Anthea politely.
The beautiful light faded slowly. The great darkness and silence came and these suddenly changed to the dazzlement of day and the great soft, rustling sound of London, that is like some vast beast turning over in its sleep.
The children rubbed their eyes, the Psammead ran quickly to its sandy bath, and the others went down to tea. And until the cups were actually filled tea seemed less real than the beautiful voice and the greeny light.
After tea Anthea persuaded the others to allow her to hang the charm round her neck with a piece of string.
‘It would be so awful if it got lost,’ she said: ‘it might get lost anywhere, you know, and it would be rather beastly for us to have to stay in the Past for ever and ever, wouldn’t it?’
CHAPTER 4. EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO
Next morning Anthea got old Nurse to allow her to take up the ‘poor learned gentleman’s’ breakfast. He did not recognize her at first, but when he did he was vaguely pleased to see her.
‘You see I’m wearing the charm round my neck,’ she said; ‘I’m taking care of it — like you told us to.’
‘That’s right,’ said he; ‘did you have a good game last night?’
‘You will eat your breakfast before it’s cold, won’t you?’ said Anthea. ‘Yes, we had a splendid time. The charm made it all dark, and then greeny light, and then it spoke. Oh! I wish you could have heard it — it was such a darling voice — and it told us the other half of it was lost in the Past, so of course we shall have to look for it there!’
The learned gentleman rubbed his hair with both hands and looked anxiously at Anthea.
‘I suppose it’s natural — youthful imagination and so forth,’ he said. ‘Yet someone must have... Who told you that some part of the charm was missing?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ she said. ‘I know it seems most awfully rude, especially after being so kind about telling us the name of power, and all that, but really, I’m not allowed to tell anybody anything about the — the — the person who told me. You won’t forget your breakfast, will you?’
The learned gentleman smiled feebly and then frowned — not a cross-frown, but a puzzle-frown.
‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘I shall always be pleased if you’ll look in — any time you’re passing you know — at least...’
‘I will,’ she said; ‘goodbye. I’ll always tell you anything I MAY tell.’
He had not had many adventures with children in them, and he wondered whether all children were like these. He spent quite five minutes in wondering before he settled down to the fifty-second chapter of his great book on ‘The Secret Rites of the Priests of Amen Ra’.
It is no use to pretend that the children did not feel a good deal of agitation at the thought of going through the charm into the Past. That idea, that perhaps they might stay in the Past and never get back again, was anything but pleasing. Yet no one would have dared to suggest that the charm should not be used; and though each was in its heart very frightened indeed, they would all have joined in jeering at the cowardice of any one of them who should have uttered the timid but natural suggestion, ‘Don’t let’s!’
It seemed necessary to make arrangements for being out all day, for there was no reason to suppose that the sound of the dinner-bell would be able to reach back into the Past, and it seemed unwise to excite old Nurse’s curiosity when nothing they could say — not even the truth — could in any way satisfy it. They were all very proud to think how well they had understood what the charm and the Psammead had said about Time and Space and things like that, and they were perfectly certain that it would be quite impossible to make old Nurse understand a single word of it. So they merely asked her to let them take their dinner out into Regent’s Park — and this, with the implied cold mutton and tomatoes, was readily granted.
‘You can get yourselves some buns or sponge-cakes, or whatever you fancy-like,’ said old Nurse, giving Cyril a shilling. ‘Don’t go getting jam-tarts, now — so messy at the best of times, and without forks and plates ruination to your clothes, besides your not being able to wash your hands and faces afterwards.’
So Cyril took the shilling, and they all started off. They went round by the Tottenham Court Road to buy a piece of waterproof sheeting to put over the Psammead in case it should be raining in the Past when they got there. For it is almost certain death to a Psammead to get wet.
The sun was shining very brightly, and even London looked pretty. Women were selling roses from big baskets-full, and Anthea bought four roses, one each, for herself and the others. They were red roses and smelt of summer — the kind of roses you always want so desperately at about Christmas-time when you can only get mistletoe, which is pale right through to its very scent, and holly which pricks your nose if you try to smell it. So now everyone had a rose in its buttonhole, and soon everyone was sitting on the grass in Regent’s Park under trees whose leaves would have been clean, clear green in the country, but here were dusty and yellowish, and brown at the edges.
‘We’ve got to go on with it,’ said Anthea, ‘and as the eldest has to go first, you’ll have to be last, Jane. You quite understand about holding on to the charm as you go through, don’t you, Pussy?’
‘I wish I hadn’t got to be last,’ said Jane.
‘You shall carry the Psammead if you like,’ said Anthea. ‘That is,’ she added, remembering the beast’s queer temper, ‘if it’ll let you.’
The Psammead, however, was unexpectedly amiable.
‘I don’t mind,’ it said, ‘who carries me, so long as it doesn’t drop me. I can’t bear being dropped.’
Jane with trembling hands took the Psammead and its fish-basket under one arm. The charm’s long string was hung round her neck. Then they all stood up. Jane held out the charm at arm’s length, and Cyril solemnly pronounced the word of power.
As he spoke it the charm grew tall and broad, and he saw that Jane was just holding on to the edge of a great red arch of very curious shape. The opening of the arch was small, but Cyril saw that he could go through it. All round and beyond the arch were the faded trees and trampled grass of Regent’s Park, where the little ragged children were playing Ring-o’-Roses. But through the opening of it shone a blaze of blue and yellow and red. Cyril drew a long breath and stiffened his legs so that the others should not see that his knees were trembling and almost knocking together. ‘Here goes!’ he said, and, stepping up through the arch, disappeared. Then followed Anthea. Robert, coming next, held fast, at Anthea’s suggestion, to the sleeve of Jane, who was thus dragged safely through the arch. And as soon as they were on the other side of the arch there was no more arch at all and no more Regent’s Park either, only the charm in Jane’s hand, and it was its proper size again. They were now in a ligh
t so bright that they winked and blinked and rubbed their eyes. During this dazzling interval Anthea felt for the charm and pushed it inside Jane’s frock, so that it might be quite safe. When their eyes got used to the new wonderful light the children looked around them. The sky was very, very blue, and it sparkled and glittered and dazzled like the sea at home when the sun shines on it.
They were standing on a little clearing in a thick, low forest; there were trees and shrubs and a close, thorny, tangly undergrowth. In front of them stretched a bank of strange black mud, then came the browny-yellowy shining ribbon of a river. Then more dry, caked mud and more greeny-browny jungle. The only things that told that human people had been there were the clearing, a path that led to it, and an odd arrangement of cut reeds in the river.
They looked at each other.
‘Well!’ said Robert, ‘this IS a change of air!’
It was. The air was hotter than they could have imagined, even in London in August.
‘I wish I knew where we were,’ said Cyril.
‘Here’s a river, now — I wonder whether it’s the Amazon or the Tiber, or what.’
‘It’s the Nile,’ said the Psammead, looking out of the fish-bag.
‘Then this is Egypt,’ said Robert, who had once taken a geography prize.
‘I don’t see any crocodiles,’ Cyril objected. His prize had been for natural history.
The Psammead reached out a hairy arm from its basket and pointed to a heap of mud at the edge of the water.
‘What do you call that?’ it said; and as it spoke the heap of mud slid into the river just as a slab of damp mixed mortar will slip from a bricklayer’s trowel.
‘Oh!’ said everybody.
There was a crashing among the reeds on the other side of the water.
‘And there’s a river-horse!’ said the Psammead, as a great beast like an enormous slaty-blue slug showed itself against the black bank on the far side of the stream.
‘It’s a hippopotamus,’ said Cyril; ‘it seems much more real somehow than the one at the Zoo, doesn’t it?’
