Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  ‘Then all that adventure took no time at all?’

  ‘You can call it that if you like,’ said the Psammead. ‘It took none of the modern time, anyhow.’

  That evening Anthea carried up a steak for the learned gentleman’s dinner. She persuaded Beatrice, the maid-of-all-work, who had given her the bangle with the blue stone, to let her do it. And she stayed and talked to him, by special invitation, while he ate the dinner.

  She told him the whole adventure, beginning with —

  ‘This afternoon we found ourselves on the bank of the River Nile,’ and ending up with, ‘And then we remembered how to get back, and there we were in Regent’s Park, and it hadn’t taken any time at all.’

  She did not tell anything about the charm or the Psammead, because that was forbidden, but the story was quite wonderful enough even as it was to entrance the learned gentleman.

  ‘You are a most unusual little girl,’ he said. ‘Who tells you all these things?’

  ‘No one,’ said Anthea, ‘they just happen.’

  ‘Make-believe,’ he said slowly, as one who recalls and pronounces a long-forgotten word.

  He sat long after she had left him. At last he roused himself with a start.

  ‘I really must take a holiday,’ he said; ‘my nerves must be all out of order. I actually have a perfectly distinct impression that the little girl from the rooms below came in and gave me a coherent and graphic picture of life as I conceive it to have been in pre-dynastic Egypt. Strange what tricks the mind will play! I shall have to be more careful.’

  He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a mile walk before he went back to his work.

  CHAPTER 6. THE WAY TO BABYLON

  ‘How many miles to Babylon?

  Three score and ten!

  Can I get there by candle light?

  Yes, and back again!’

  Jane was singing to her doll, rocking it to and fro in the house which she had made for herself and it. The roof of the house was the dining-table, and the walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hanging all round, and kept in their places by books laid on their top ends at the table edge.

  The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. You know how it is done — with the largest and best tea-tray and the surface of the stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days when the stair rods are being cleaned, and the carpet is only held by the nails at the top. Of course, it is one of the five or six thoroughly tip-top games that grown-up people are so unjust to — and old Nurse, though a brick in many respects, was quite enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot down on the tobogganing long before any of the performers had had half enough of it. The tea-tray was taken away, and the baffled party entered the sitting-room, in exactly the mood not to be pleased if they could help it.

  So Cyril said, ‘What a beastly mess!’

  And Robert added, ‘Do shut up, Jane!’

  Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try another song. ‘I’m sick to death of that,’ said she.

  It was a wet day, so none of the plans for seeing all the sights of London that can be seen for nothing could be carried out. Everyone had been thinking all the morning about the wonderful adventures of the day before, when Jane had held up the charm and it had turned into an arch, through which they had walked straight out of the present time and the Regent’s Park into the land of Egypt eight thousand years ago. The memory of yesterday’s happenings was still extremely fresh and frightening, so that everyone hoped that no one would suggest another excursion into the past, for it seemed to all that yesterday’s adventures were quite enough to last for at least a week. Yet each felt a little anxious that the others should not think it was afraid, and presently Cyril, who really was not a coward, began to see that it would not be at all nice if he should have to think himself one. So he said —

  ‘I say — about that charm — Jane — come out. We ought to talk about it, anyhow.’

  ‘Oh, if that’s all,’ said Robert.

  Jane obediently wriggled to the front of her house and sat there.

  She felt for the charm, to make sure that it was still round her neck.

  ‘It ISN’T all,’ said Cyril, saying much more than he meant because he thought Robert’s tone had been rude — as indeed it had.

  ‘We ought to go and look for that Amulet. What’s the good of having a first-class charm and keeping it idle, just eating its head off in the stable.’

  ‘I’M game for anything, of course,’ said Robert; but he added, with a fine air of chivalry, ‘only I don’t think the girls are keen today somehow.’

  ‘Oh, yes; I am,’ said Anthea hurriedly. ‘If you think I’m afraid, I’m not.’

  ‘I am though,’ said Jane heavily; ‘I didn’t like it, and I won’t go there again — not for anything I won’t.’

  ‘We shouldn’t go THERE again, silly,’ said Cyril; ‘it would be some other place.’

  ‘I daresay; a place with lions and tigers in it as likely as not.’

  Seeing Jane so frightened, made the others feel quite brave. They said they were certain they ought to go.

  ‘It’s so ungrateful to the Psammead not to,’ Anthea added, a little primly.

  Jane stood up. She was desperate.

  ‘I won’t!’ she cried; ‘I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! If you make me I’ll scream and I’ll scream, and I’ll tell old Nurse, and I’ll get her to burn the charm in the kitchen fire. So now, then!’

  You can imagine how furious everyone was with Jane for feeling what each of them had felt all the morning. In each breast the same thought arose, ‘No one can say it’s OUR fault.’ And they at once began to show Jane how angry they all felt that all the fault was hers. This made them feel quite brave.

  ‘Tell-tale tit, its tongue shall be split,

  And all the dogs in our town shall have a little bit,’

  sang Robert.

  ‘It’s always the way if you have girls in anything.’ Cyril spoke in a cold displeasure that was worse than Robert’s cruel quotation, and even Anthea said, ‘Well, I’M not afraid if I AM a girl,’ which of course, was the most cutting thing of all.

  Jane picked up her doll and faced the others with what is sometimes called the courage of despair.

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said; ‘I won’t, so there! It’s just silly going to places when you don’t want to, and when you don’t know what they’re going to be like! You can laugh at me as much as you like. You’re beasts — and I hate you all!’

  With these awful words she went out and banged the door.

  Then the others would not look at each other, and they did not feel so brave as they had done.

  Cyril took up a book, but it was not interesting to read. Robert kicked a chair-leg absently. His feet were always eloquent in moments of emotion. Anthea stood pleating the end of the tablecloth into folds — she seemed earnestly anxious to get all the pleats the same size. The sound of Jane’s sobs had died away.

  Suddenly Anthea said, ‘Oh! let it be “pax” — poor little Pussy — you know she’s the youngest.’

  ‘She called us beasts,’ said Robert, kicking the chair suddenly.

  ‘Well, said Cyril, who was subject to passing fits of justice, ‘we began, you know. At least you did.’ Cyril’s justice was always uncompromising.

  ‘I’m not going to say I’m sorry if you mean that,’ said Robert, and the chair-leg cracked to the kick he gave as he said it.

  ‘Oh, do let’s,’ said Anthea, ‘we’re three to one, and Mother does so hate it if we row. Come on. I’ll say I’m sorry first, though I didn’t say anything, hardly.’

  ‘All right, let’s get it over,’ said Cyril, opening the door.’Hi — you — Pussy!’

  Far away up the stairs a voice could be heard singing brokenly, but still defiantly —

  ‘How many miles (sniff) to Babylon?

  Three score and ten! (sniff)

  Can I get there by candle light?
<
br />   Yes (sniff), and back again!’

  It was trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would not give herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, taking three at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the top step of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying to sing.

  ‘I say, Pussy, let it be pax! We’re sorry if you are—’

  It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being the youngest was entitled to this ceremonial. Anthea added a special apology of her own.

  ‘I’m sorry if I was a pig, Pussy dear,’ she said—’especially because in my really and truly inside mind I’ve been feeling a little as if I’d rather not go into the Past again either. But then, do think. If we don’t go we shan’t get the Amulet, and oh, Pussy, think if we could only get Father and Mother and The Lamb safe back! We MUST go, but we’ll wait a day or two if you like and then perhaps you’ll feel braver.’

  ‘Raw meat makes you brave, however cowardly you are,’ said Robert, to show that there was now no ill-feeling, ‘and cranberries — that’s what Tartars eat, and they’re so brave it’s simply awful. I suppose cranberries are only for Christmas time, but I’ll ask old Nurse to let you have your chop very raw if you like.’

  ‘I think I could be brave without that,’ said Jane hastily; she hated underdone meat. ‘I’ll try.’

  At this moment the door of the learned gentleman’s room opened, and he looked out.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, in that gentle, polite weary voice of his, ‘but was I mistaken in thinking that I caught a familiar word just now? Were you not singing some old ballad of Babylon?’

  ‘No,’ said Robert, ‘at least Jane was singing “How many miles,” but I shouldn’t have thought you could have heard the words for—’

  He would have said, ‘for the sniffing,’ but Anthea pinched him just in time.

  ‘I did not hear ALL the words,’ said the learned gentleman. ‘I wonder would you recite them to me?’

  So they all said together —

  ‘How many miles to Babylon?

  Three score and ten!

  Can I get there by candle light?

  Yes, and back again!’

  ‘I wish one could,’ the learned gentleman said with a sigh.

  ‘Can’t you?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Babylon has fallen,’ he answered with a sigh. ‘You know it was once a great and beautiful city, and the centre of learning and Art, and now it is only ruins, and so covered up with earth that people are not even agreed as to where it once stood.’

  He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look in them, as though he could see through the staircase window the splendour and glory of ancient Babylon.

  ‘I say,’ Cyril remarked abruptly. ‘You know that charm we showed you, and you told us how to say the name that’s on it?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Well, do you think that charm was ever in Babylon?’

  ‘It’s quite possible,’ the learned gentleman replied. ‘Such charms have been found in very early Egyptian tombs, yet their origin has not been accurately determined as Egyptian. They may have been brought from Asia. Or, supposing the charm to have been fashioned in Egypt, it might very well have been carried to Babylon by some friendly embassy, or brought back by the Babylonish army from some Egyptian campaign as part of the spoils of war. The inscription may be much later than the charm. Oh yes! it is a pleasant fancy, that that splendid specimen of yours was once used amid Babylonish surroundings.’ The others looked at each other, but it was Jane who spoke.

  ‘Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and throwing things about?’ For she had read the thoughts of the others by the unerring light of her own fears.

  ‘The Babylonians were certainly more gentle than the Assyrians,’ said the learned gentleman. ‘And they were not savages by any means. A very high level of culture,’ he looked doubtfully at his audience and went on, ‘I mean that they made beautiful statues and jewellery, and built splendid palaces. And they were very learned — they had glorious libraries and high towers for the purpose of astrological and astronomical observation.’

  ‘Er?’ said Robert.

  ‘I mean for — star-gazing and fortune-telling,’ said the learned gentleman, ‘and there were temples and beautiful hanging gardens—’

  ‘I’ll go to Babylon if you like,’ said Jane abruptly, and the others hastened to say ‘Done!’ before she should have time to change her mind.

  ‘Ah,’ said the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, ‘one can go so far in dreams, when one is young.’ He sighed again, and then adding with a laboured briskness, ‘I hope you’ll have a — a — jolly game,’ he went into his room and shut the door.

  ‘He said “jolly” as if it was a foreign language,’ said Cyril. ‘Come on, let’s get the Psammead and go now. I think Babylon seems a most frightfully jolly place to go to.’

  So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag with the waterproof sheet, in case of inclement weather in Babylon. It was very cross, but it said it would as soon go to Babylon as anywhere else. ‘The sand is good thereabouts,’ it added.

  Then Jane held up the charm, and Cyril said —

  ‘We want to go to Babylon to look for the part of you that was lost. Will you please let us go there through you?’

  ‘Please put us down just outside,’ said Jane hastily; ‘and then if we don’t like it we needn’t go inside.’

  ‘Don’t be all day,’ said the Psammead.

  So Anthea hastily uttered the word of power, without which the charm could do nothing.

  ‘Ur — Hekau — Setcheh!’ she said softly, and as she spoke the charm grew into an arch so tall that the top of it was close against the bedroom ceiling. Outside the arch was the bedroom painted chest-of-drawers and the Kidderminster carpet, and the washhand-stand with the riveted willow-pattern jug, and the faded curtains, and the dull light of indoors on a wet day. Through the arch showed the gleam of soft green leaves and white blossoms. They stepped forward quite happily. Even Jane felt that this did not look like lions, and her hand hardly trembled at all as she held the charm for the others to go through, and last, slipped through herself, and hung the charm, now grown small again, round her neck.

  The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafed fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, all white-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long green grass under their feet grew crocuses and lilies, and strange blue flowers. In the branches overhead thrushes and blackbirds were singing, and the coo of a pigeon came softly to them in the green quietness of the orchard.

  ‘Oh, how perfectly lovely!’ cried Anthea.

  ‘Why, it’s like home exactly — I mean England — only everything’s bluer, and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.’

  The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane admitted that it was all very pretty.

  ‘I’m certain there’s nothing to be frightened of here,’ said Anthea.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jane. ‘I suppose the fruit-trees go on just the same even when people are killing each other. I didn’t half like what the learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens. I suppose they have gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn’t one.’

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Cyril. ‘The hanging gardens are just gardens hung up — I think on chains between houses, don’t you know, like trays. Come on; let’s get somewhere.’

  They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could see was nothing but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end of their orchard was another one, only separated from theirs by a little stream of clear water. They jumped this, and went on. Cyril, who was fond of gardening — which meant that he liked to watch the gardener at work — was able to command the respect of the others by telling them the names of a good many trees. There were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots, an
d fig-trees with their big five-fingered leaves. And every now and then the children had to cross another brook.

  ‘It’s like between the squares in Through the Looking-glass,’ said Anthea.

  At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the other orchards. It had a low building in one corner.

  ‘These are vines,’ said Cyril superiorly, ‘and I know this is a vineyard. I shouldn’t wonder if there was a wine-press inside that place over there.’

  At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, very rough, and not at all like the roads you are used to. It had cypress trees and acacia trees along it, and a sort of hedge of tamarisks, like those you see on the road between Nice and Cannes, or near Littlehampton, if you’ve only been as far as that.

  And now in front of them they could see a great mass of buildings. There were scattered houses of wood and stone here and there among green orchards, and beyond these a great wall that shone red in the early morning sun. The wall was enormously high — more than half the height of St Paul’s — and in the wall were set enormous gates that shone like gold as the rising sun beat on them. Each gate had a solid square tower on each side of it that stood out from the wall and rose above it. Beyond the wall were more towers and houses, gleaming with gold and bright colours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue swirl of a great river. And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, that the river flowed out from the town under a great arch in the wall.

  ‘Those feathery things along by the water are palms,’ said Cyril instructively.

  ‘Oh, yes; you know everything,’ Robert replied. ‘What’s all that grey-green stuff you see away over there, where it’s all flat and sandy?’

  ‘All right,’ said Cyril loftily, ‘I don’t want to tell you anything. I only thought you’d like to know a palm-tree when you saw it again.’

  ‘Look!’ cried Anthea; ‘they’re opening the gates.’

  And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and instantly a little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and along the road towards them.