And the children were left alone in the justice-hall with the Queen of Babylon and her ladies.
“There!” said the Queen, with a long sigh of relief. “_That’s_ over! I couldn’t have done another stitch of justice if you’d offered me the crown of Egypt! Now come into the garden, and we’ll have a nice, long, cosy talk.”
She led them through long, narrow corridors whose walls they somehow felt, were very, very thick, into a sort of garden courtyard. There were thick shrubs closely planted, and roses were trained over trellises, and made a pleasant shade—needed, indeed, for already the sun was as hot as it is in England in August at the seaside.
Slaves spread cushions on a low, marble terrace, and a big man with a smooth face served cool drink in cups of gold studded with beryls. He drank a little from the Queen’s cup before handing it to her.
“That’s rather a nasty trick,” whispered Robert, who had been carefully taught never to drink out of one of the nice, shiny, metal cups that are chained to the London drinking fountains without first rinsing it out thoroughly.
“Not at all,” said she. “Ritti-Marduk is a very clean man. And one has to have _someone_ as taster, you know, because of poison.”
The word made the children feel rather creepy; but Ritti-Marduk had tasted all the cups, so they felt pretty safe. The drink was delicious—very cold, and tasting like lemonade and partly like penny ices.
“Leave us,” said the Queen. And all the Court ladies, in their beautiful, many-folded, many-coloured, fringed dresses, filed out slowly, and the children were left alone with the Queen.
“Now,” she said, “tell me all about yourselves.”
“No—you—Cyril,” said Anthea. “Don’t you remember how pleased the Queen of India was when you told her all about us?”
Cyril muttered that it was all very well, and so it was. For when he had told the tale of the Phœnix and the Carpet to the Ranee, it had been only the truth—and all the truth that he had to tell. But now it was not easy to tell a convincing story without mentioning the Amulet—which, of course, it wouldn’t have done to mention—and without owning that they were really living in London, about 2,500 years later than the time they were talking in.
Cyril took refuge in the tale of the Psammead and its wonderful power of making wishes come true. The children had never been able to tell anyone before, and Cyril was surprised to find that the spell which kept them silent in London did not work here. “Something to do with our being in the Past, I suppose,” he said to himself.