by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER 5. THE FIGHT IN THE VILLAGE
Here was a horrible position! Four English children, whose proper datewas A.D. 1905, and whose proper address was London, set down in Egypt inthe year 6000 B.C. with no means whatever of getting back into their owntime and place. They could not find the East, and the sun was of no useat the moment, because some officious person had once explained to Cyrilthat the sun did not really set in the West at all--nor rise in the Easteither, for the matter of that.
The Psammead had crept out of the bass-bag when they were not lookingand had basely deserted them.
An enemy was approaching. There would be a fight. People get killedin fights, and the idea of taking part in a fight was one that did notappeal to the children.
The man who had brought the news of the enemy still lay panting on thesand. His tongue was hanging out, long and red, like a dog's. Thepeople of the village were hurriedly filling the gaps in the fence withthorn-bushes from the heap that seemed to have been piled thereready for just such a need. They lifted the cluster-thorns with longpoles--much as men at home, nowadays, lift hay with a fork.
Jane bit her lip and tried to decide not to cry.
Robert felt in his pocket for a toy pistol and loaded it with a pinkpaper cap. It was his only weapon.
Cyril tightened his belt two holes.
And Anthea absently took the drooping red roses from the buttonholes ofthe others, bit the ends of the stalks, and set them in a pot of waterthat stood in the shadow by a hut door. She was always rather sillyabout flowers.
'Look here!' she said. 'I think perhaps the Psammead is really arrangingsomething for us. I don't believe it would go away and leave us allalone in the Past. I'm certain it wouldn't.'
Jane succeeded in deciding not to cry--at any rate yet.
'But what can we do?' Robert asked.
'Nothing,' Cyril answered promptly, 'except keep our eyes and ears open.Look! That runner chap's getting his wind. Let's go and hear what he'sgot to say.'
The runner had risen to his knees and was sitting back on his heels. Nowhe stood up and spoke. He began by some respectful remarks addressed tothe heads of the village. His speech got more interesting when he said--
'I went out in my raft to snare ibises, and I had gone up the stream anhour's journey. Then I set my snares and waited. And I heard the soundof many wings, and looking up, saw many herons circling in the air. AndI saw that they were afraid; so I took thought. A beast may scare oneheron, coming upon it suddenly, but no beast will scare a whole flock ofherons. And still they flew and circled, and would not light. So then Iknew that what scared the herons must be men, and men who knew not ourways of going softly so as to take the birds and beasts unawares. Bythis I knew they were not of our race or of our place. So, leaving myraft, I crept along the river bank, and at last came upon the strangers.They are many as the sands of the desert, and their spear-heads shinered like the sun. They are a terrible people, and their march is towardsUS. Having seen this, I ran, and did not stay till I was before you.'
'These are YOUR folk,' said the headman, turning suddenly and angrily onCyril, 'you came as spies for them.'
'We did NOT,' said Cyril indignantly. 'We wouldn't be spies foranything. I'm certain these people aren't a bit like us. Are they now?'he asked the runner.
'No,' was the answer. 'These men's faces were darkened, and their hairblack as night. Yet these strange children, maybe, are their gods, whohave come before to make ready the way for them.'
A murmur ran through the crowd.
'No, NO,' said Cyril again. 'We are on your side. We will help you toguard your sacred things.'
The headman seemed impressed by the fact that Cyril knew that there WEREsacred things to be guarded. He stood a moment gazing at the children.Then he said--
'It is well. And now let all make offering, that we may be strong inbattle.'
The crowd dispersed, and nine men, wearing antelope-skins, groupedthemselves in front of the opening in the hedge in the middle ofthe village. And presently, one by one, the men brought all sorts ofthings--hippopotamus flesh, ostrich-feathers, the fruit of the datepalms, red chalk, green chalk, fish from the river, and ibex from themountains; and the headman received these gifts. There was another hedgeinside the first, about a yard from it, so that there was a lane insidebetween the hedges. And every now and then one of the headmen woulddisappear along this lane with full hands and come back with handsempty.
'They're making offerings to their Amulet,' said Anthea. 'We'd bettergive something too.'
The pockets of the party, hastily explored, yielded a piece of pinktape, a bit of sealing-wax, and part of the Waterbury watch that Roberthad not been able to help taking to pieces at Christmas and had neverhad time to rearrange. Most boys have a watch in this condition. Theypresented their offerings, and Anthea added the red roses.
The headman who took the things looked at them with awe, especially atthe red roses and the Waterbury-watch fragment.
'This is a day of very wondrous happenings,' he said. 'I have no moreroom in me to be astonished. Our maiden said there was peace between youand us. But for this coming of a foe we should have made sure.'
The children shuddered.
'Now speak. Are you upon our side?'
'YES. Don't I keep telling you we are?' Robert said. 'Look here. I willgive you a sign. You see this.' He held out the toy pistol. 'I shallspeak to it, and if it answers me you will know that I and the othersare come to guard your sacred thing--that we've just made the offeringsto.'
'Will that god whose image you hold in your hand speak to you alone, orshall I also hear it?' asked the man cautiously.
'You'll be surprised when you DO hear it,' said Robert. 'Now, then.' Helooked at the pistol and said--
'If we are to guard the sacred treasure within'--he pointed to thehedged-in space--'speak with thy loud voice, and we shall obey.'
He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, for itwas a two-shilling pistol, and the caps were excellent.
Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on the sand.The headman who had accepted the test rose first.
'The voice has spoken,' he said. 'Lead them into the ante-room of thesacred thing.'
So now the four children were led in through the opening of the hedgeand round the lane till they came to an opening in the inner hedge, andthey went through an opening in that, and so passed into another lane.
The thing was built something like this, and all the hedges were ofbrushwood and thorns: [Drawing of maze omitted.]
'It's like the maze at Hampton Court,' whispered Anthea.
The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the middle ofthe maze was round-roofed, and a curtain of skins hung over the doorway.
'Here you may wait,' said their guide, 'but do not dare to pass thecurtain.' He himself passed it and disappeared.
'But look here,' whispered Cyril, 'some of us ought to be outside incase the Psammead turns up.'
'Don't let's get separated from each other, whatever we do,' saidAnthea. 'It's quite bad enough to be separated from the Psammead. Wecan't do anything while that man is in there. Let's all go out intothe village again. We can come back later now we know the way in.That man'll have to fight like the rest, most likely, if it comes tofighting. If we find the Psammead we'll go straight home.
It must be getting late, and I don't much like this mazy place.'
They went out and told the headman that they would protect the treasurewhen the fighting began. And now they looked about them and were ableto see exactly how a first-class worker in flint flakes and notches anarrow-head or the edge of an axe--an advantage which no other person nowalive has ever enjoyed. The boys found the weapons most interesting.The arrow-heads were not on arrows such as you shoot from a bow, buton javelins, for throwing from the hand. The chief weapon was a stonefastened to a rather short stick something like the things gentlemenused to carry about and call life-preservers in the day
s of thegarrotters.
Then there were long things like spears or lances, with flintknives--horribly sharp--and flint battle-axes.
Everyone in the village was so busy that the place was like an ant-heapwhen you have walked into it by accident. The women were busy and eventhe children.
Quite suddenly all the air seemed to glow and grow red--it was likethe sudden opening of a furnace door, such as you may see at WoolwichArsenal if you ever have the luck to be taken there--and then almost assuddenly it was as though the furnace doors had been shut. For the sunhad set, and it was night.
The sun had that abrupt way of setting in Egypt eight thousand yearsago, and I believe it has never been able to break itself of the habit,and sets in exactly the same manner to the present day. The girl broughtthe skins of wild deer and led the children to a heap of dry sedge.
'My father says they will not attack yet. Sleep!' she said, and itreally seemed a good idea. You may think that in the midst of all thesedangers the children would not have been able to sleep--but somehow,though they were rather frightened now and then, the feeling was growingin them--deep down and almost hidden away, but still growing--that thePsammead was to be trusted, and that they were really and truly safe.This did not prevent their being quite as much frightened as they couldbear to be without being perfectly miserable.
'I suppose we'd better go to sleep,' said Robert. 'I don't know what onearth poor old Nurse will do with us out all night; set the police onour tracks, I expect. I only wish they could find us! A dozen policemenwould be rather welcome just now. But it's no use getting into a stewover it,' he added soothingly. 'Good night.'
And they all fell asleep.
They were awakened by long, loud, terrible sounds that seemed to comefrom everywhere at once--horrible threatening shouts and shrieksand howls that sounded, as Cyril said later, like the voices of menthirsting for their enemies' blood.
'It is the voice of the strange men,' said the girl, coming to themtrembling through the dark. 'They have attacked the walls, and thethorns have driven them back. My father says they will not try againtill daylight. But they are shouting to frighten us. As though we weresavages! Dwellers in the swamps!' she cried indignantly.
All night the terrible noise went on, but when the sun rose, as abruptlyas he had set, the sound suddenly ceased.
The children had hardly time to be glad of this before a showerof javelins came hurtling over the great thorn-hedge, and everyonesheltered behind the huts. But next moment another shower of weaponscame from the opposite side, and the crowd rushed to other shelter.Cyril pulled out a javelin that had stuck in the roof of the hut besidehim. Its head was of brightly burnished copper.
Then the sound of shouting arose again and the crackle of dried thorns.The enemy was breaking down the hedge. All the villagers swarmed to thepoint whence the crackling and the shouting came; they hurled stonesover the hedges, and short arrows with flint heads. The children hadnever before seen men with the fighting light in their eyes. It was verystrange and terrible, and gave you a queer thick feeling in your throat;it was quite different from the pictures of fights in the illustratedpapers at home.
It seemed that the shower of stones had driven back the besiegers. Thebesieged drew breath, but at that moment the shouting and the cracklingarose on the opposite side of the village and the crowd hastenedto defend that point, and so the fight swayed to and fro across thevillage, for the besieged had not the sense to divide their forces astheir enemies had done.
Cyril noticed that every now and then certain of the fighting-men wouldenter the maze, and come out with brighter faces, a braver aspect, and amore upright carriage.
'I believe they go and touch the Amulet,' he said. 'You know thePsammead said it could make people brave.'
They crept through the maze, and watching they saw that Cyril was right.A headman was standing in front of the skin curtain, and as the warriorscame before him he murmured a word they could not hear, and touchedtheir foreheads with something that they could not see. And thissomething he held in his hands. And through his fingers they saw thegleam of a red stone that they knew.
The fight raged across the thorn-hedge outside. Suddenly there was aloud and bitter cry.
'They're in! They're in! The hedge is down!'
The headman disappeared behind the deer-skin curtain.
'He's gone to hide it,' said Anthea. 'Oh, Psammead dear, how could youleave us!'
Suddenly there was a shriek from inside the hut, and the headmanstaggered out white with fear and fled out through the maze. Thechildren were as white as he.
'Oh! What is it? What is it?' moaned Anthea. 'Oh, Psammead, how couldyou! How could you!'
And the sound of the fight sank breathlessly, and swelled fiercely allaround. It was like the rising and falling of the waves of the sea.
Anthea shuddered and said again, 'Oh, Psammead, Psammead!'
'Well?' said a brisk voice, and the curtain of skins was lifted at onecorner by a furry hand, and out peeped the bat's ears and snail's eyesof the Psammead.
Anthea caught it in her arms and a sigh of desperate relief was breathedby each of the four.
'Oh! which IS the East!' Anthea said, and she spoke hurriedly, for thenoise of wild fighting drew nearer and nearer.
'Don't choke me,' said the Psammead, 'come inside.'
The inside of the hut was pitch dark.
'I've got a match,' said Cyril, and struck it. The floor of the hut wasof soft, loose sand.
'I've been asleep here,' said the Psammead; 'most comfortable it's been,the best sand I've had for a month. It's all right. Everything's allright. I knew your only chance would be while the fight was going on.That man won't come back. I bit him, and he thinks I'm an Evil Spirit.Now you've only got to take the thing and go.'
The hut was hung with skins. Heaped in the middle were the offeringsthat had been given the night before, Anthea's roses fading on the topof the heap. At one side of the hut stood a large square stone block,and on it an oblong box of earthenware with strange figures of men andbeasts on it.
'Is the thing in there?' asked Cyril, as the Psammead pointed a skinnyfinger at it.
'You must judge of that,' said the Psammead. 'The man was just going tobury the box in the sand when I jumped out at him and bit him.'
'Light another match, Robert,' said Anthea. 'Now, then quick! which isthe East?'
'Why, where the sun rises, of course!'
'But someone told us--'
'Oh! they'll tell you anything!' said the Psammead impatiently, gettinginto its bass-bag and wrapping itself in its waterproof sheet.
'But we can't see the sun in here, and it isn't rising anyhow,' saidJane.
'How you do waste time!' the Psammead said. 'Why, the East's where theshrine is, of course. THERE!'
It pointed to the great stone.
And still the shouting and the clash of stone on metal sounded nearerand nearer. The children could hear that the headmen had surrounded thehut to protect their treasure as long as might be from the enemy. Butnone dare to come in after the Psammead's sudden fierce biting of theheadman.
'Now, Jane,' said Cyril, very quickly. 'I'll take the Amulet, you standready to hold up the charm, and be sure you don't let it go as you comethrough.'
He made a step forward, but at that instant a great crackling overheadended in a blaze of sunlight. The roof had been broken in at one side,and great slabs of it were being lifted off by two spears. As thechildren trembled and winked in the new light, large dark hands toredown the wall, and a dark face, with a blobby fat nose, looked over thegap. Even at that awful moment Anthea had time to think that it was verylike the face of Mr Jacob Absalom, who had sold them the charm in theshop near Charing Cross.
'Here is their Amulet,' cried a harsh, strange voice; 'it is this thatmakes them strong to fight and brave to die. And what else have wehere--gods or demons?'
He glared fiercely at the children, and the whites of his eyes were verywhite indeed. He had a wet,
red copper knife in his teeth. There was nota moment to lose.
'Jane, JANE, QUICK!' cried everyone passionately.
Jane with trembling hands held up the charm towards the East, and Cyrilspoke the word of power. The Amulet grew to a great arch. Out beyondit was the glaring Egyptian sky, the broken wall, the cruel, dark,big-nosed face with the red, wet knife in its gleaming teeth. Within thearch was the dull, faint, greeny-brown of London grass and trees.
'Hold tight, Jane!' Cyril cried, and he dashed through the arch,dragging Anthea and the Psammead after him. Robert followed, clutchingJane. And in the ears of each, as they passed through the arch of thecharm, the sound and fury of battle died out suddenly and utterly, andthey heard only the low, dull, discontented hum of vast London, and thepeeking and patting of the sparrows on the gravel and the voices of theragged baby children playing Ring-o'-Roses on the yellow trampled grass.And the charm was a little charm again in Jane's hand, and there was thebasket with their dinner and the bathbuns lying just where they had leftit.
'My hat!' said Cyril, drawing a long breath; 'that was something like anadventure.'
'It was rather like one, certainly,' said the Psammead.
They all lay still, breathing in the safe, quiet air of Regent's Park.
'We'd better go home at once,' said Anthea presently. 'Old Nurse will bemost frightfully anxious. The sun looks about the same as it did whenwe started yesterday. We've been away twenty-four hours.' 'The buns arequite soft still,' said Cyril, feeling one; 'I suppose the dew kept themfresh.'
They were not hungry, curiously enough.
They picked up the dinner-basket and the Psammead-basket, and wentstraight home.
Old Nurse met them with amazement.
'Well, if ever I did!' she said. 'What's gone wrong? You've soon tiredof your picnic.'
The children took this to be bitter irony, which means saying the exactopposite of what you mean in order to make yourself disagreeable; aswhen you happen to have a dirty face, and someone says, 'How nice andclean you look!'
'We're very sorry,' began Anthea, but old Nurse said--
'Oh, bless me, child, I don't care! Please yourselves and you'll pleaseme. Come in and get your dinners comf'table. I've got a potato ona-boiling.'
When she had gone to attend to the potatoes the children looked at eachother. Could it be that old Nurse had so changed that she no longercared that they should have been away from home for twenty-fourhours--all night in fact--without any explanation whatever?
But the Psammead put its head out of its basket and said--
'What's the matter? Don't you understand? You come back through thecharm-arch at the same time as you go through it. This isn't tomorrow!''Is it still yesterday?' asked Jane.
'No, it's today. The same as it's always been. It wouldn't do to gomixing up the present and the Past, and cutting bits out of one to fitinto the other.'
'Then all that adventure took no time at all?'
'You can call it that if you like,' said the Psammead. 'It took none ofthe modern time, anyhow.'
That evening Anthea carried up a steak for the learned gentleman'sdinner. She persuaded Beatrice, the maid-of-all-work, who had given herthe bangle with the blue stone, to let her do it. And she stayed andtalked to him, by special invitation, while he ate the dinner.
She told him the whole adventure, beginning with--
'This afternoon we found ourselves on the bank of the River Nile,' andending up with, 'And then we remembered how to get back, and there wewere in Regent's Park, and it hadn't taken any time at all.'
She did not tell anything about the charm or the Psammead, because thatwas forbidden, but the story was quite wonderful enough even as it wasto entrance the learned gentleman.
'You are a most unusual little girl,' he said. 'Who tells you all thesethings?'
'No one,' said Anthea, 'they just happen.'
'Make-believe,' he said slowly, as one who recalls and pronounces along-forgotten word.
He sat long after she had left him. At last he roused himself with astart.
'I really must take a holiday,' he said; 'my nerves must be all out oforder. I actually have a perfectly distinct impression that the littlegirl from the rooms below came in and gave me a coherent and graphicpicture of life as I conceive it to have been in pre-dynastic Egypt.Strange what tricks the mind will play! I shall have to be morecareful.'
He finished his bread conscientiously, and actually went for a mile walkbefore he went back to his work.