Jane added a key-ring, the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held cold-cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, and a key—no lock.
“We can’t take all this rubbish,” said Robert, with some scorn. “We must just each choose one thing.”
The afternoon passed very agreeably in the attempt to choose from the table the four most suitable objects. But the four children could not agree what was suitable, and at last Cyril said—
“Look here, let’s each be blindfolded and reach out, and the first thing you touch you stick to.”
“It’s not much,” she said. “I don’t believe Ancient Egyptians wore ties.”
“Never mind,” said Anthea. “I believe it’s luckier not to really choose. In the stories it’s always the thing the wood-cutter’s son picks up in the forest, and almost throws away because he thinks it’s no good, that turns out to be the magic thing in the end; or else someone’s lost it, and he is rewarded with the hand of the King’s daughter in marriage.”
“I don’t want any hands in marriage, thank you.” said Cyril firmly.
“Nor yet me,” said Robert. “It’s always the end of the adventures when it comes to the marriage hands.”
“It _is_ Egypt we’re going to, isn’t it?—nice Egypt?” said Jane. “I won’t go anywhere I don’t know about—like that dreadful big-wavy burning-mountain city,” she insisted.
Then the Psammead was coaxed into its bag.
“I say,” said Cyril suddenly, “I’m rather sick of kings. And people notice you so in palaces. Besides the Amulet’s sure to be in a Temple. Let’s just go among the common people, and try to work ourselves up by degrees. We might get taken on as Temple assistants.”
“Like beadles,” said Anthea, “or vergers. They must have splendid chances of stealing the Temple treasures.”
“Righto!” was the general rejoinder. The charm was held up. It grew big once again, and once again the warm golden Eastern light glowed softly beyond it.
As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang in their ears. They went suddenly from the quiet of Fitzroy Street dining-room into a very angry Eastern crowd, a crowd much too angry to notice them. They edged through it to the wall of a house and stood there. The crowd was of men, women, and children. They were of all sorts of complexions, and pictures of them might have been coloured by any child with a shilling paint-box. The colours that child would have used for complexions would have been yellow ochre, red ochre, light red, sepia, and indian ink. But their faces were painted already—black eyebrows and lashes, and some red lips. The women wore a sort of pinafore with shoulder straps, and loose things wound round their heads and shoulders. The men wore very little clothing—for they were the working people—and the Egyptian boys and girls wore nothing at all, unless you count the little ornaments hung on chains round their necks and waists. The children saw all this before they could hear anything distinctly. Everyone was shouting so.