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.”
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.