“And so we’ve lost the other half of the Amulet again,” said Anthea, when they had told the Psammead all about it.
“Nonsense, pooh!” said the Psammead. “That wasn’t the other half. It was the same half that you’ve got—the one that wasn’t crushed and lost.”
“But how could it be the same?” said Anthea gently.
“Well, not exactly, of course. The one you’ve got is a good many years older, but at any rate it’s not the other one. What did you say when you wished?”
“I don’t,” said the Psammead. “You said, ‘Take us where _you_ are’—and it did, so you see it was the same half.”
“But you mark my words,” the Psammead went on, “you’ll have trouble with that Priest yet.”
“Why, he was quite friendly,” said Anthea.
“All the same you’d better beware of the Reverend Rekh-marā.”
“Oh, I’m sick of the Amulet,” said Cyril, “we shall never get it.”
“Oh yes we shall,” said Robert. “Don’t you remember December 3rd?”
“Jinks!” said Cyril, “I’d forgotten that.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Jane, “and I don’t feel at all well.”
“If I were you,” said the Psammead, “I should not go out into the Past again till that date. You’ll find it safer not to go where you’re likely to meet that Egyptian any more just at present.”
“Of course we’ll do as you say,” said Anthea soothingly, “though there’s something about his face that I really do like.”
“Still, you don’t want to run after him, I suppose,” snapped the Psammead. “You wait till the 3rd, and then see what happens.”
Cyril and Jane were feeling far from well, Anthea was always obliging, so Robert was overruled. And they promised. And none of them, not even the Psammead, at all foresaw, as you no doubt do quite plainly, exactly what it was that _would_ happen on that memorable date.
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.