Bab Bab 14 · The Heart’S Desire

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THE HEART’S DESIRE

If I only had time I could tell you lots of things. For instance, how,

in spite of the advice of the Psammead, the four children did, one very

wet day, go through their Amulet Arch into the golden desert, and there

find the great Temple of Baalbec and meet with the Phœnix whom they

never thought to see again. And how the Phœnix did not remember them at

all until it went into a sort of prophetic trance—if that can be called

remembering. But, alas! I _haven’t_ time, so I must leave all that out

though it was a wonderfully thrilling adventure. I must leave out, too,

all about the visit of the children to the Hippodrome with the Psammead

in its travelling bag, and about how the wishes of the people round

about them were granted so suddenly and surprisingly that at last the

Psammead had to be taken hurriedly home by Anthea, who consequently

missed half the performance. Then there was the time when, Nurse having

gone to tea with a friend out Ivalunk way, they were playing “devil in

the dark”—and in the midst of that most creepy pastime the postman’s

knock frightened Jane nearly out of her life. She took in the letters,

however, and put them in the back of the hat-stand drawer, so that they

should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of them again

for weeks and weeks.

One really good thing happened when they took the Psammead to a

magic-lantern show and lecture at the boys’ school at Camden Town. The

lecture was all about our soldiers in South Africa. And the lecturer

ended up by saying, “And I hope every boy in this room has in his heart

the seeds of courage and heroism and self-sacrifice, and I wish that

every one of you may grow up to be noble and brave and unselfish,

worthy citizens of this great Empire for whom our soldiers have freely

given their lives.”

And, of course, this came true—which was a distinct score for Camden

Town.

As Anthea said, it was unlucky that the lecturer said boys, because now

she and Jane would have to be noble and unselfish, if at all, without

any outside help. But Jane said, “I daresay we are already because of

our beautiful natures. It’s only boys that have to be made brave by

magic”—which nearly led to a first-class row.

And I daresay you would like to know all about the affair of the

fishing rod, and the fish-hooks, and the cook next door—which was

amusing from some points of view, though not perhaps the cook’s—but

there really is no time even for that.

The only thing that there’s time to tell about is the Adventure of

Maskelyne and Cooke’s, and the Unexpected Apparition—which is also the

beginning of the end.

It was Nurse who broke into the gloomy music of the autumn rain on the

window panes by suggesting a visit to the Egyptian Hall, England’s Home

of Mystery. Though they had good, but private reasons to know that

their own particular personal mystery was of a very different brand,

the four all brightened at the idea. All children, as well as a good

many grown-ups, love conjuring.

“It’s in Piccadilly,” said old Nurse, carefully counting out the proper

number of shillings into Cyril’s hand, “not so very far down on the

left from the Circus. There’s big pillars outside, something like

Carter’s seed place in Holborn, as used to be Day and Martin’s blacking

when I was a gell. And something like Euston Station, only not so big.”

“Yes, I know,” said everybody.

So they started.

But though they walked along the left-hand side of Piccadilly they saw

no pillared building that was at all like Carter’s seed warehouse or

Euston Station or England’s Home of Mystery as they remembered it.

At last they stopped a hurried lady, and asked her the way to Maskelyne

and Cooke’s.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she said, pushing past them. “I always shop

at the Stores.” Which just shows, as Jane said, how ignorant grown-up

people are.

It was a policeman who at last explained to them that England’s

Mysteries are now appropriately enough enacted at St George’s Hall. So

they tramped to Langham Place, and missed the first two items in the

programme. But they were in time for the most wonderful magic

appearances and disappearances, which they could hardly believe—even

with all their knowledge of a larger magic—was not really magic after

all.

“If only the Babylonians could have seen _this_ conjuring,” whispered

Cyril. “It takes the shine out of their old conjurer, doesn’t it?”

“Hush!” said Anthea and several other members of the audience.

Now there was a vacant seat next to Robert. And it was when all eyes

were fixed on the stage where Mr Devant was pouring out glasses of all

sorts of different things to drink, out of one kettle with one spout,

and the audience were delightedly tasting them, that Robert felt

someone in that vacant seat. He did not feel someone sit down in it. It

was just that one moment there was no one sitting there, and the next

moment, suddenly, there was someone.

Robert turned. The someone who had suddenly filled that empty place was

Rekh-marā, the Priest of Amen!

Though the eyes of the audience were fixed on Mr David Devant, Mr David

Devant’s eyes were fixed on the audience. And it happened that his eyes

were more particularly fixed on that empty chair. So that he saw quite

plainly the sudden appearance, from nowhere, of the Egyptian Priest.

“A jolly good trick,” he said to himself, “and worked under my own

eyes, in my own hall. I’ll find out how that’s done.” He had never seen

a trick that he could not do himself if he tried.

By this time a good many eyes in the audience had turned on the

clean-shaven, curiously-dressed figure of the Egyptian Priest.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr Devant, rising to the occasion, “this

is a trick I have never before performed. The empty seat, third from

the end, second row, gallery—you will now find occupied by an Ancient

Egyptian, warranted genuine.”

He little knew how true his words were.

And now all eyes were turned on the Priest and the children, and the

whole audience, after a moment’s breathless surprise, shouted applause.

Only the lady on the other side of Rekh-marā drew back a little. She

_knew_ no one had passed her, and, as she said later, over tea and cold

tongue, “it was that sudden it made her flesh creep.”

Rekh-marā seemed very much annoyed at the notice he was exciting.

“Come out of this crowd,” he whispered to Robert. “I must talk with you

apart.”

“Oh, no,” Jane whispered. “I did so want to see the Mascot Moth, and

the Ventriloquist.”

“How did you get here?” was Robert’s return whisper.

“How did you get to Egypt and to Tyre?” retorted Rekh-marā. “Come, let

us leave this crowd.”

“There’s no help for it, I suppose,” Robert shrugged angrily. But they

all got up.

“Confederates!” said a man in the row behind. “Now they go round to the

back and take part in the next scene.”

“I wish we did,” said Robert.

“Confederate yourself!” said Cyril. And so they got away, the audience

applauding to the last.

In the vestibule of St George’s Hall they disguised Rekh-marā as well

as they could, but even with Robert’s hat and Cyril’s Inverness cape he

was too striking a figure for foot-exercise in the London streets. It

had to be a cab, and it took the last, least money of all of them. They

stopped the cab a few doors from home, and then the girls went in and

engaged old Nurse’s attention by an account of the conjuring and a

fervent entreaty for dripping-toast with their tea, leaving the front

door open so that while Nurse was talking to them the boys could creep

quietly in with Rekh-marā and smuggle him, unseen, up the stairs into

their bedroom.

When the girls came up they found the Egyptian Priest sitting on the

side of Cyril’s bed, his hands on his knees, looking like a statue of a

king.

“Come on,” said Cyril impatiently. “He won’t begin till we’re all here.

And shut the door, can’t you?”

When the door was shut the Egyptian said—

“My interests and yours are one.”

“Very interesting,” said Cyril, “and it’ll be a jolly sight more

interesting if you keep following us about in a decent country with no

more clothes on than _that!_”

“Peace,” said the Priest. “What is this country? and what is this

_time?_”

“The country’s England,” said Anthea, “and the time’s about 6,000 years

later than _your_ time.”

“The Amulet, then,” said the Priest, deeply thoughtful, “gives the

power to move to and fro in time as well as in space?”

“That’s about it,” said Cyril gruffly. “Look here, it’ll be tea-time

directly. What are we to do with you?”

“You have one-half of the Amulet, I the other,” said Rekh-marā. “All

that is now needed is the pin to join them.”

“Don’t you think it,” said Robert. “The half you’ve got is the same

half as the one we’ve got.”

“But the same thing cannot be in the same place and the same time, and

yet be not one, but twain,” said the Priest. “See, here is my half.” He

laid it on the Marcella counterpane. “Where is yours?”

Jane watching the eyes of the others, unfastened the string of the

Amulet and laid it on the bed, but too far off for the Priest to seize

it, even if he had been so dishonourable. Cyril and Robert stood beside

him, ready to spring on him if one of his hands had moved but ever so

little towards the magic treasure that was theirs. But his hands did

not move, only his eyes opened very wide, and so did everyone else’s

for the Amulet the Priest had now quivered and shook; and then, as

steel is drawn to the magnet, it was drawn across the white

counterpane, nearer and nearer to the Amulet, warm from the neck of

Jane. And then, as one drop of water mingles with another on a

rain-wrinkled window-pane, as one bead of quick-silver is drawn into

another bead, Rekh-marā’s Amulet slipped into the other one, and,

behold! there was no more but the one Amulet!

“Black magic!” cried Rekh-marā, and sprang forward to snatch the Amulet

that had swallowed his. But Anthea caught it up, and at the same moment

the Priest was jerked back by a rope thrown over his head. It drew,

tightened with the pull of his forward leap, and bound his elbows to

his sides. Before he had time to use his strength to free himself,

Robert had knotted the cord behind him and tied it to the bedpost. Then

the four children, overcoming the priest’s wrigglings and kickings,

tied his legs with more rope.

“I thought,” said Robert, breathing hard, and drawing the last knot

tight, “he’d have a try for _Ours_, so I got the ropes out of the

box-room, so as to be ready.”

The girls, with rather white faces, applauded his foresight.

“Loosen these bonds!” cried Rekh-marā in fury, “before I blast you with

the seven secret curses of Amen-Rā!”

“We shouldn’t be likely to loose them _after_,” Robert retorted.

“Oh, don’t quarrel!” said Anthea desperately. “Look here, he _has_ just

as much right to the thing as we have. This,” she took up the Amulet

that had swallowed the other one, “this has got his in it as well as

being ours. Let’s go shares.”

“Let me go!” cried the Priest, writhing.

“Now, look here,” said Robert, “if you make a row we can just open that

window and call the police—the guards, you know—and tell them you’ve

been trying to rob us. _Now_ will you shut up and listen to reason?”

“I suppose so,” said Rekh-marā sulkily.

But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered counsel had been

held in the far corner by the washhand-stand and the towel-horse, a

counsel rather long and very earnest.

At last Anthea detached herself from the group, and went back to the

Priest.

“Look here,” she said in her kind little voice, “we want to be friends.

We want to help you. Let’s make a treaty. Let’s join together to _get_

the Amulet—the whole one, I mean. And then it shall belong to you as

much as to us, and we shall all get our hearts’ desire.”

“Fair words,” said the Priest, “grow no onions.”

“_We_ say, ‘Butter no parsnips’,” Jane put in. “But don’t you see we

_want_ to be fair? Only we want to bind you in the chains of honour and

upright dealing.”

“Will you deal fairly by us?” said Robert.

“I will,” said the Priest. “By the sacred, secret name that is written

under the Altar of Amen-Rā, I will deal fairly by you. Will you, too,

take the oath of honourable partnership?”

“No,” said Anthea, on the instant, and added rather rashly, “We don’t

swear in England, except in police courts, where the guards are, you

know, and you don’t want to go there. But when we _say_ we’ll do a

thing—it’s the same as an oath to us—we do it. You trust us, and we’ll

trust you.” She began to unbind his legs, and the boys hastened to

untie his arms.

When he was free he stood up, stretched his arms, and laughed.

“Now,” he said, “I am stronger than you and my oath is void. I have

sworn by nothing, and my oath is nothing likewise. For there _is_ no

secret, sacred name under the altar of Amen-Rā.”

“Oh, yes there is!” said a voice from under the bed. Everyone

started—Rekh-marā most of all.

Cyril stooped and pulled out the bath of sand where the Psammead slept.

“You don’t know everything, though you _are_ a Divine Father of the

Temple of Amen,” said the Psammead shaking itself till the sand fell

tinkling on the bath edge. “There _is_ a secret, sacred name beneath

the altar of Amen-Rā. Shall I call on that name?”

“No, no!” cried the Priest in terror. “No,” said Jane, too. “Don’t

let’s have any calling names.”

“Besides,” said Rekh-marā, who had turned very white indeed under his

natural brownness, “I was only going to say that though there isn’t any

name under—”

“There _is_,” said the Psammead threateningly.

“Well, even if there _wasn’t_, I will be bound by the wordless oath of

your strangely upright land, and having said that I will be your

friend—I will be it.”

“Then that’s all right,” said the Psammead; “and there’s the tea-bell.

What are you going to do with your distinguished partner? He can’t go

down to tea like that, you know.”

“You see we can’t do anything till the 3rd of December,” said Anthea,

“that’s when we are to find the whole charm. What can we do with

Rekh-marā till then?”

“Box-room,” said Cyril briefly, “and smuggle up his meals. It will be

rather fun.”

“Like a fleeing Cavalier concealed from exasperated Roundheads,” said

Robert. “Yes.”

So Rekh-marā was taken up to the box-room and made as comfortable as

possible in a snug nook between an old nursery fender and the wreck of

a big four-poster. They gave him a big rag-bag to sit on, and an old,

moth-eaten fur coat off the nail on the door to keep him warm. And when

they had had their own tea they took him some. He did not like the tea

at all, but he liked the bread and butter, and cake that went with it.

They took it in turns to sit with him during the evening, and left him

fairly happy and quite settled for the night.

But when they went up in the morning with a kipper, a quarter of which

each of them had gone without at breakfast, Rekh-marā was gone! There

was the cosy corner with the rag-bag, and the moth-eaten fur coat—but

the cosy corner was empty.

“Good riddance!” was naturally the first delightful thought in each

mind. The second was less pleasing, because everyone at once remembered

that since his Amulet had been swallowed up by theirs—which hung once

more round the neck of Jane—he could have no possible means of

returning to his Egyptian past. Therefore he must be still in England,

and probably somewhere quite near them, plotting mischief.

The attic was searched, to prevent mistakes, but quite vainly.

“The best thing we can do,” said Cyril, “is to go through the half

Amulet straight away, get the whole Amulet, and come back.”

“I don’t know,” Anthea hesitated. “Would that be quite fair? Perhaps he

isn’t really a base deceiver. Perhaps something’s happened to him.”

“Happened?” said Cyril, “not it! Besides, what _could_ happen?”

“I don’t know,” said Anthea. “Perhaps burglars came in the night, and

accidentally killed him, and took away the—all that was mortal of him,

you know—to avoid discovery.”

“Or perhaps,” said Cyril, “they hid the—all that was mortal, in one of

those big trunks in the box-room. _Shall we go back and look?_” he

added grimly.

“No, no!” Jane shuddered. “Let’s go and tell the Psammead and see what

it says.”

“No,” said Anthea, “let’s ask the learned gentleman. If anything _has_

happened to Rekh-marā a gentleman’s advice would be more useful than a

Psammead’s. And the learned gentleman’ll only think it’s a dream, like

he always does.”

They tapped at the door, and on the “Come in” entered. The learned

gentleman was sitting in front of his untasted breakfast. Opposite him,

in the easy chair, sat Rekh-marā!

“Hush!” said the learned gentleman very earnestly, “please, hush! or

the dream will go. I am learning... Oh, what have I not learned in the

last hour!”

“In the grey dawn,” said the Priest, “I left my hiding-place, and

finding myself among these treasures from my own country, I remained. I

feel more at home here somehow.”

“Of course I know it’s a dream,” said the learned gentleman feverishly,

“but, oh, ye gods! what a dream! By Jove!...”

“Call not upon the gods,” said the Priest, “lest ye raise greater ones

than ye can control. Already,” he explained to the children, “he and I

are as brothers, and his welfare is dear to me as my own.”

“He has told me,” the learned gentleman began, but Robert interrupted.

This was no moment for manners.

“Have you told him,” he asked the Priest, “all about the Amulet?”

“No,” said Rekh-marā.

“Then tell him now. He is very learned. Perhaps he can tell us what to

do.”

Rekh-marā hesitated, then told—and, oddly enough, none of the children

ever could remember afterwards what it was that he did tell. Perhaps he

used some magic to prevent their remembering.

When he had done the learned gentleman was silent, leaning his elbow on

the table and his head on his hand.

“Dear Jimmy,” said Anthea gently, “don’t worry about it. We are sure to

find it today, somehow.”

“Yes,” said Rekh-marā, “and perhaps, with it, Death.”

“It’s to bring us our hearts’ desire,” said Robert.

“Who knows,” said the Priest, “what things undreamed-of and infinitely

desirable lie beyond the dark gates?”

“Oh, _don’t_,” said Jane, almost whimpering.

The learned gentleman raised his head suddenly.

“Why not,” he suggested, “go back into the Past? At a moment when the

Amulet is unwatched. Wish to be with it, and that it shall be under

your hand.”

It was the simplest thing in the world! And yet none of them had ever

thought of it.

“Come,” cried Rekh-marā, leaping up. “Come _now!_”

“May—may I come?” the learned gentleman timidly asked. “It’s only a

dream, you know.”

“Come, and welcome, oh brother,” Rekh-marā was beginning, but Cyril and

Robert with one voice cried, “_No_.”

“You weren’t with us in Atlantis,” Robert added, “or you’d know better

than to let him come.”

“Dear Jimmy,” said Anthea, “please don’t ask to come. We’ll go and be

back again before you have time to know that we’re gone.”

“And he, too?”

“We must keep together,” said Rekh-marā, “since there is but one

perfect Amulet to which I and these children have equal claims.”

Jane held up the Amulet—Rekh-marā went first—and they all passed

through the great arch into which the Amulet grew at the Name of Power.

The learned gentleman saw through the arch a darkness lighted by smoky

gleams. He rubbed his eyes. And he only rubbed them for ten seconds.

The children and the Priest were in a small, dark chamber. A square

doorway of massive stone let in gleams of shifting light, and the sound

of many voices chanting a slow, strange hymn. They stood listening. Now

and then the chant quickened and the light grew brighter, as though

fuel had been thrown on a fire.

“Where are we?” whispered Anthea.

“And when?” whispered Robert.

“This is some shrine near the beginnings of belief,” said the Egyptian

shivering. “Take the Amulet and come away. It is cold here in the

morning of the world.”

And then Jane felt that her hand was on a slab or table of stone, and,

under her hand, something that felt like the charm that had so long

hung round her neck, only it was thicker. Twice as thick.

“It’s _here!_” she said, “I’ve got it!” And she hardly knew the sound

of her own voice.

“Come away,” repeated Rekh-marā.

“I wish we could see more of this Temple,” said Robert resistingly.

“Come away,” the Priest urged, “there is death all about, and strong

magic. Listen.”

The chanting voices seemed to have grown louder and fiercer, and light

stronger.

“They are coming!” cried Rekh-marā. “Quick, quick, the Amulet!”

Jane held it up.

“What a long time you’ve been rubbing your eyes!” said Anthea; “don’t

you see we’ve got back?” The learned gentleman merely stared at her.

“Miss Anthea—Miss Jane!” It was Nurse’s voice, very much higher and

squeaky and more exalted than usual.

“Oh, bother!” said everyone. Cyril adding, “You just go on with the

dream for a sec, Mr Jimmy, we’ll be back directly. Nurse’ll come up if

we don’t. _She_ wouldn’t think Rekh-marā was a dream.”

Then they went down. Nurse was in the hall, an orange envelope in one

hand, and a pink paper in the other.

“Your Pa and Ma’s come home. ‘Reach London 11.15. Prepare rooms as

directed in letter’, and signed in their two names.”

“Oh, hooray! hooray! hooray!” shouted the boys and Jane. But Anthea

could not shout, she was nearer crying.

“Oh,” she said almost in a whisper, “then it _was_ true. And we _have_

got our hearts’ desire.”

“But I don’t understand about the letter,” Nurse was saying. “I haven’t

_had_ no letter.”

“_Oh!_” said Jane in a queer voice, “I wonder whether it was one of

those... they came that night—you know, when we were playing ‘devil in

the dark’—and I put them in the hat-stand drawer, behind the

clothes-brushes and”—she pulled out the drawer as she spoke—“and here

they are!”

There was a letter for Nurse and one for the children. The letters told

how Father had done being a war-correspondent and was coming home; and

how Mother and The Lamb were going to meet him in Italy and all come

home together; and how The Lamb and Mother were quite well; and how a

telegram would be sent to tell the day and the hour of their

home-coming.

“Mercy me!” said old Nurse. “I declare if it’s not too bad of you, Miss

Jane. I shall have a nice to-do getting things straight for your Pa and

Ma.”

“Oh, never mind, Nurse,” said Jane, hugging her; “isn’t it just too

lovely for anything!”

“We’ll come and help you,” said Cyril. “There’s just something upstairs

we’ve got to settle up, and then we’ll all come and help you.”

“Get along with you,” said old Nurse, but she laughed jollily. “Nice

help _you’d_ be. I know you. And it’s ten o’clock now.”

There was, in fact, something upstairs that they had to settle. Quite a

considerable something, too. And it took much longer than they

expected.

A hasty rush into the boys’ room secured the Psammead, very sandy and

very cross.

“It doesn’t matter how cross and sandy it is though,” said Anthea, “it

ought to be there at the final council.”

“It’ll give the learned gentleman fits, I expect,” said Robert, “when

he sees it.”

But it didn’t.

“The dream is growing more and more wonderful,” he exclaimed, when the

Psammead had been explained to him by Rekh-marā. “I have dreamed this

beast before.”

“Now,” said Robert, “Jane has got the half Amulet and I’ve got the

whole. Show up, Jane.”

Jane untied the string and laid her half Amulet on the table, littered

with dusty papers, and the clay cylinders marked all over with little

marks like the little prints of birds’ little feet.

Robert laid down the whole Amulet, and Anthea gently restrained the

eager hand of the learned gentleman as it reached out yearningly

towards the “perfect specimen”.

And then, just as before on the Marcella quilt, so now on the dusty

litter of papers and curiosities, the half Amulet quivered and shook,

and then, as steel is drawn to a magnet, it was drawn across the dusty

manuscripts, nearer and nearer to the perfect Amulet, warm from the

pocket of Robert. And then, as one drop of water mingles with another

when the panes of the window are wrinkled with rain, as one bead of

mercury is drawn into another bead, the half Amulet, that was the

children’s and was also Rekh-marā’s,—slipped into the whole Amulet,

and, behold! there was only one—the perfect and ultimate Charm.

“And _that’s_ all right,” said the Psammead, breaking a breathless

silence.

“Yes,” said Anthea, “and we’ve got our hearts’ desire. Father and

Mother and The Lamb are coming home today.”

“But what about me?” said Rekh-marā.

“What _is_ your heart’s desire?” Anthea asked.

“Great and deep learning,” said the Priest, without a moment’s

hesitation. “A learning greater and deeper than that of any man of my

land and my time. But learning too great is useless. If I go back to my

own land and my own age, who will believe my tales of what I have seen

in the future? Let me stay here, be the great knower of all that has

been, in that our time, so living to me, so old to you, about which

your learned men speculate unceasingly, and often, _he_ tells me,

vainly.”

“If I were you,” said the Psammead, “I should ask the Amulet about

that. It’s a dangerous thing, trying to live in a time that’s not your

own. You can’t breathe an air that’s thousands of centuries ahead of

your lungs without feeling the effects of it, sooner or later. Prepare

the mystic circle and consult the Amulet.”

“Oh, _what_ a dream!” cried the learned gentleman. “Dear children, if

you love me—and I think you do, in dreams and out of them—prepare the

mystic circle and consult the Amulet!”

They did. As once before, when the sun had shone in August splendour,

they crouched in a circle on the floor. Now the air outside was thick

and yellow with the fog that by some strange decree always attends the

Cattle Show week. And in the street costers were shouting. “Ur Hekau

Setcheh,” Jane said the Name of Power. And instantly the light went

out, and all the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence and a

darkness, both deeper than any darkness or silence that you have ever

even dreamed of imagining. It was like being deaf or blind, only darker

and quieter even than that.

Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a voice.

The light was too faint to see anything by, and the voice was too small

for you to hear what it said. But the light and the voice grew. And the

light was the light that no man may look on and live, and the voice was

the sweetest and most terrible voice in the world. The children cast

down their eyes. And so did everyone.

“I speak,” said the voice. “What is it that you would hear?”

There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak.

“What are we to do about Rekh-marā?” said Robert suddenly and abruptly.

“Shall he go back through the Amulet to his own time, or—”

“No one can pass through the Amulet now,” said the beautiful, terrible

voice, “to any land or any time. Only when it was imperfect could such

things be. But men may pass through the perfect charm to the perfect

union, which is not of time or space.”

“Would you be so very kind,” said Anthea tremulously, “as to speak so

that we can understand you? The Psammead said something about Rekh-marā

not being able to live here, and if he can’t get back—” She stopped,

her heart was beating desperately in her throat, as it seemed.

“Nobody can continue to live in a land and in a time not appointed,”

said the voice of glorious sweetness. “But a soul may live, if in that

other time and land there be found a soul so akin to it as to offer it

refuge, in the body of that land and time, that thus they two may be

one soul in one body.”

The children exchanged discouraged glances. But the eyes of Rekh-marā

and the learned gentleman met, and were kind to each other, and

promised each other many things, secret and sacred and very beautiful.

Anthea saw the look.

“Oh, but,” she said, without at all meaning to say it, “dear Jimmy’s

soul isn’t at all like Rekh-marā’s. I’m certain it isn’t. I don’t want

to be rude, but it _isn’t_, you know. Dear Jimmy’s soul is as good as

gold, and—”

“Nothing that is not good can pass beneath the double arch of my

perfect Amulet,” said the voice. “If both are willing, say the word of

Power, and let the two souls become one for ever and ever more.”

“Shall I?” asked Jane.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

The voices were those of the Egyptian Priest and the learned gentleman,

and the voices were eager, alive, thrilled with hope and the desire of

great things.

So Jane took the Amulet from Robert and held it up between the two men,

and said, for the last time, the word of Power.

“Ur Hekau Setcheh.”

The perfect Amulet grew into a double arch; the two arches leaned to

each other Λ making a great A.

“A stands for Amen,” whispered Jane; “what he was a priest of.”

“Hush!” breathed Anthea.

The great double arch glowed in and through the green light that had

been there since the Name of Power had first been spoken—it glowed with

a light more bright yet more soft than the other light—a glory and

splendour and sweetness unspeakable.

“Come!” cried Rekh-marā, holding out his hands.

“Come!” cried the learned gentleman, and he also held out his hands.

Each moved forward under the glowing, glorious arch of the perfect

Amulet.

Then Rekh-marā quavered and shook, and as steel is drawn to a magnet he

was drawn, under the arch of magic, nearer and nearer to the learned

gentleman. And, as one drop of water mingles with another, when the

window-glass is rain-wrinkled, as one quick-silver bead is drawn to

another quick-silver bead, Rekh-marā, Divine Father of the Temple of

Amen-Rā, was drawn into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one

with Jimmy, the good, the beloved, the learned gentleman.

And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone. The fog

has passed away like a dream.

The Amulet was there—little and complete in Jane’s hand, and there were

the other children and the Psammead, and the learned gentleman. But

Rekh-marā—or the body of Rekh-marā—was not there any more. As for his

soul...

“Oh, the horrid thing!” cried Robert, and put his foot on a centipede

as long as your finger, that crawled and wriggled and squirmed at the

learned gentleman’s feet.

“_That_,” said the Psammead, “was the evil in the soul of Rekh-marā.”

There was a deep silence.

“Then Rekh-marā’s _him_ now?” said Jane at last.

“All that was good in Rekh-marā,” said the Psammead.

“_He_ ought to have his heart’s desire, too,” said Anthea, in a sort of

stubborn gentleness.

“_His_ heart’s desire,” said the Psammead, “is the perfect Amulet you

hold in your hand. Yes—and has been ever since he first saw the broken

half of it.”

“We’ve got ours,” said Anthea softly.

“Yes,” said the Psammead—its voice was crosser than they had ever heard

it—“your parents are coming home. And what’s to become of _me?_ I shall

be found out, and made a show of, and degraded in every possible way. I

_know_ they’ll make me go into Parliament—hateful place—all mud and no

sand. That beautiful Baalbec temple in the desert! Plenty of good sand

there, and no politics! I wish I were there, safe in the Past—that I

do.”

“I wish you were,” said the learned gentleman absently, yet polite as

ever.

The Psammead swelled itself up, turned its long snail’s eyes in one

last lingering look at Anthea—a loving look, she always said, and

thought—and—vanished.

“Well,” said Anthea, after a silence, “I suppose it’s happy. The only

thing it ever did really care for was _sand_.”

“My dear children,” said the learned gentleman, “I must have fallen

asleep. I’ve had the most extraordinary dream.”

“I hope it was a nice one,” said Cyril with courtesy.

“Yes.... I feel a new man after it. Absolutely a new man.”

There was a ring at the front-door bell. The opening of a door. Voices.

“It’s _them!_” cried Robert, and a thrill ran through four hearts.

“Here!” cried Anthea, snatching the Amulet from Jane and pressing it

into the hand of the learned gentleman. “Here—it’s _yours_—your very

own—a present from us, because you’re Rekh-marā as well as... I mean,

because you’re such a dear.”

She hugged him briefly but fervently, and the four swept down the

stairs to the hall, where a cabman was bringing in boxes, and where,

heavily disguised in travelling cloaks and wraps, was their hearts’

desire—three-fold—Mother, Father, and The Lamb.

“Bless me!” said the learned gentleman, left alone, “bless me! What a

treasure! The dear children! It must be their affection that has given

me these luminous _aperçus_. I seem to see so many things now—things I

never saw before! The dear children! The dear, dear children!”