by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER 6. THE WAY TO BABYLON
'How many miles to Babylon? Three score and ten! Can I get there by candle light? Yes, and back again!'
Jane was singing to her doll, rocking it to and fro in the housewhich she had made for herself and it. The roof of the house was thedining-table, and the walls were tablecloths and antimacassars hangingall round, and kept in their places by books laid on their top ends atthe table edge.
The others were tasting the fearful joys of domestic tobogganing. Youknow how it is done--with the largest and best tea-tray and the surfaceof the stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days when the stair rodsare being cleaned, and the carpet is only held by the nails at the top.Of course, it is one of the five or six thoroughly tip-top games thatgrown-up people are so unjust to--and old Nurse, though a brick in manyrespects, was quite enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot downon the tobogganing long before any of the performers had had half enoughof it. The tea-tray was taken away, and the baffled party entered thesitting-room, in exactly the mood not to be pleased if they could helpit.
So Cyril said, 'What a beastly mess!'
And Robert added, 'Do shut up, Jane!'
Even Anthea, who was almost always kind, advised Jane to try anothersong. 'I'm sick to death of that,' said she.
It was a wet day, so none of the plans for seeing all the sights ofLondon that can be seen for nothing could be carried out. Everyone hadbeen thinking all the morning about the wonderful adventures of the daybefore, when Jane had held up the charm and it had turned into an arch,through which they had walked straight out of the present time andthe Regent's Park into the land of Egypt eight thousand years ago.The memory of yesterday's happenings was still extremely fresh andfrightening, so that everyone hoped that no one would suggest anotherexcursion into the past, for it seemed to all that yesterday'sadventures were quite enough to last for at least a week. Yet each felta little anxious that the others should not think it was afraid, andpresently Cyril, who really was not a coward, began to see that it wouldnot be at all nice if he should have to think himself one. So he said--
'I say--about that charm--Jane--come out. We ought to talk about it,anyhow.'
'Oh, if that's all,' said Robert.
Jane obediently wriggled to the front of her house and sat there.
She felt for the charm, to make sure that it was still round her neck.
'It ISN'T all,' said Cyril, saying much more than he meant because hethought Robert's tone had been rude--as indeed it had.
'We ought to go and look for that Amulet. What's the good of having afirst-class charm and keeping it idle, just eating its head off in thestable.'
'I'M game for anything, of course,' said Robert; but he added, witha fine air of chivalry, 'only I don't think the girls are keen todaysomehow.'
'Oh, yes; I am,' said Anthea hurriedly. 'If you think I'm afraid, I'mnot.'
'I am though,' said Jane heavily; 'I didn't like it, and I won't gothere again--not for anything I won't.'
'We shouldn't go THERE again, silly,' said Cyril; 'it would be someother place.'
'I daresay; a place with lions and tigers in it as likely as not.'
Seeing Jane so frightened, made the others feel quite brave. They saidthey were certain they ought to go.
'It's so ungrateful to the Psammead not to,' Anthea added, a littleprimly.
Jane stood up. She was desperate.
'I won't!' she cried; 'I won't, I won't, I won't! If you make me I'llscream and I'll scream, and I'll tell old Nurse, and I'll get her toburn the charm in the kitchen fire. So now, then!'
You can imagine how furious everyone was with Jane for feeling what eachof them had felt all the morning. In each breast the same thought arose,'No one can say it's OUR fault.' And they at once began to show Janehow angry they all felt that all the fault was hers. This made them feelquite brave.
'Tell-tale tit, its tongue shall be split, And all the dogs in our town shall have a little bit,'
sang Robert.
'It's always the way if you have girls in anything.' Cyril spoke in acold displeasure that was worse than Robert's cruel quotation, and evenAnthea said, 'Well, I'M not afraid if I AM a girl,' which of course, wasthe most cutting thing of all.
Jane picked up her doll and faced the others with what is sometimescalled the courage of despair.
'I don't care,' she said; 'I won't, so there! It's just silly goingto places when you don't want to, and when you don't know what they'regoing to be like! You can laugh at me as much as you like. You'rebeasts--and I hate you all!'
With these awful words she went out and banged the door.
Then the others would not look at each other, and they did not feel sobrave as they had done.
Cyril took up a book, but it was not interesting to read. Robert kickeda chair-leg absently. His feet were always eloquent in moments ofemotion. Anthea stood pleating the end of the tablecloth into folds--sheseemed earnestly anxious to get all the pleats the same size. The soundof Jane's sobs had died away.
Suddenly Anthea said, 'Oh! let it be "pax"--poor little Pussy--you knowshe's the youngest.'
'She called us beasts,' said Robert, kicking the chair suddenly.
'Well, said Cyril, who was subject to passing fits of justice,'we began, you know. At least you did.' Cyril's justice was alwaysuncompromising.
'I'm not going to say I'm sorry if you mean that,' said Robert, and thechair-leg cracked to the kick he gave as he said it.
'Oh, do let's,' said Anthea, 'we're three to one, and Mother does sohate it if we row. Come on. I'll say I'm sorry first, though I didn'tsay anything, hardly.'
'All right, let's get it over,' said Cyril, opening thedoor.'Hi--you--Pussy!'
Far away up the stairs a voice could be heard singing brokenly, butstill defiantly--
'How many miles (sniff) to Babylon? Three score and ten! (sniff) Can I get there by candle light? Yes (sniff), and back again!'
It was trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would notgive herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, takingthree at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the topstep of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying tosing.
'I say, Pussy, let it be pax! We're sorry if you are--'
It was enough. The kiss of peace was given by all. Jane being theyoungest was entitled to this ceremonial. Anthea added a special apologyof her own.
'I'm sorry if I was a pig, Pussy dear,' she said--'especially becausein my really and truly inside mind I've been feeling a little as ifI'd rather not go into the Past again either. But then, do think. If wedon't go we shan't get the Amulet, and oh, Pussy, think if we could onlyget Father and Mother and The Lamb safe back! We MUST go, but we'll waita day or two if you like and then perhaps you'll feel braver.'
'Raw meat makes you brave, however cowardly you are,' said Robert, toshow that there was now no ill-feeling, 'and cranberries--that'swhat Tartars eat, and they're so brave it's simply awful. I supposecranberries are only for Christmas time, but I'll ask old Nurse to letyou have your chop very raw if you like.'
'I think I could be brave without that,' said Jane hastily; she hatedunderdone meat. 'I'll try.'
At this moment the door of the learned gentleman's room opened, and helooked out.
'Excuse me,' he said, in that gentle, polite weary voice of his, 'butwas I mistaken in thinking that I caught a familiar word just now? Wereyou not singing some old ballad of Babylon?'
'No,' said Robert, 'at least Jane was singing "How many miles," but Ishouldn't have thought you could have heard the words for--'
He would have said, 'for the sniffing,' but Anthea pinched him just intime.
'I did not hear ALL the words,' said the learned gentleman. 'I wonderwould you recite them to me?'
So they all said together--
'How many miles to Babylon? Three score and ten! Can I get there by candle light? Yes, and back again!'
&nb
sp; 'I wish one could,' the learned gentleman said with a sigh.
'Can't you?' asked Jane.
'Babylon has fallen,' he answered with a sigh. 'You know it was once agreat and beautiful city, and the centre of learning and Art, and nowit is only ruins, and so covered up with earth that people are not evenagreed as to where it once stood.'
He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look inthem, as though he could see through the staircase window the splendourand glory of ancient Babylon.
'I say,' Cyril remarked abruptly. 'You know that charm we showed you,and you told us how to say the name that's on it?'
'Yes!'
'Well, do you think that charm was ever in Babylon?'
'It's quite possible,' the learned gentleman replied. 'Such charms havebeen found in very early Egyptian tombs, yet their origin has not beenaccurately determined as Egyptian. They may have been brought from Asia.Or, supposing the charm to have been fashioned in Egypt, it might verywell have been carried to Babylon by some friendly embassy, or broughtback by the Babylonish army from some Egyptian campaign as part of thespoils of war. The inscription may be much later than the charm. Oh yes!it is a pleasant fancy, that that splendid specimen of yours was onceused amid Babylonish surroundings.' The others looked at each other, butit was Jane who spoke.
'Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and throwingthings about?' For she had read the thoughts of the others by theunerring light of her own fears.
'The Babylonians were certainly more gentle than the Assyrians,' saidthe learned gentleman. 'And they were not savages by any means. A veryhigh level of culture,' he looked doubtfully at his audience and wenton, 'I mean that they made beautiful statues and jewellery, andbuilt splendid palaces. And they were very learned--they had gloriouslibraries and high towers for the purpose of astrological andastronomical observation.'
'Er?' said Robert.
'I mean for--star-gazing and fortune-telling,' said the learnedgentleman, 'and there were temples and beautiful hanging gardens--'
'I'll go to Babylon if you like,' said Jane abruptly, and the othershastened to say 'Done!' before she should have time to change her mind.
'Ah,' said the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, 'one can go sofar in dreams, when one is young.' He sighed again, and then adding witha laboured briskness, 'I hope you'll have a--a--jolly game,' he wentinto his room and shut the door.
'He said "jolly" as if it was a foreign language,' said Cyril. 'Comeon, let's get the Psammead and go now. I think Babylon seems a mostfrightfully jolly place to go to.'
So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag with the waterproofsheet, in case of inclement weather in Babylon. It was very cross, butit said it would as soon go to Babylon as anywhere else. 'The sand isgood thereabouts,' it added.
Then Jane held up the charm, and Cyril said--
'We want to go to Babylon to look for the part of you that was lost.Will you please let us go there through you?'
'Please put us down just outside,' said Jane hastily; 'and then if wedon't like it we needn't go inside.'
'Don't be all day,' said the Psammead.
So Anthea hastily uttered the word of power, without which the charmcould do nothing.
'Ur--Hekau--Setcheh!' she said softly, and as she spoke the charm grewinto an arch so tall that the top of it was close against the bedroomceiling. Outside the arch was the bedroom painted chest-of-drawersand the Kidderminster carpet, and the washhand-stand with the rivetedwillow-pattern jug, and the faded curtains, and the dull light ofindoors on a wet day. Through the arch showed the gleam of soft greenleaves and white blossoms. They stepped forward quite happily. Even Janefelt that this did not look like lions, and her hand hardly trembledat all as she held the charm for the others to go through, and last,slipped through herself, and hung the charm, now grown small again,round her neck.
The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafedfruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, allwhite-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long green grass undertheir feet grew crocuses and lilies, and strange blue flowers. In thebranches overhead thrushes and blackbirds were singing, and the coo of apigeon came softly to them in the green quietness of the orchard.
'Oh, how perfectly lovely!' cried Anthea.
'Why, it's like home exactly--I mean England--only everything's bluer,and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.'
The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Janeadmitted that it was all very pretty.
'I'm certain there's nothing to be frightened of here,' said Anthea.
'I don't know,' said Jane. 'I suppose the fruit-trees go on just thesame even when people are killing each other. I didn't half like whatthe learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens. I suppose theyhave gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn't one.'
'Of course it isn't,' said Cyril. 'The hanging gardens are just gardenshung up--_I_ think on chains between houses, don't you know, like trays.Come on; let's get somewhere.'
They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could see wasnothing but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end of their orchardwas another one, only separated from theirs by a little stream ofclear water. They jumped this, and went on. Cyril, who was fond ofgardening--which meant that he liked to watch the gardener at work--wasable to command the respect of the others by telling them the names ofa good many trees. There were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots,and fig-trees with their big five-fingered leaves. And every now andthen the children had to cross another brook.
'It's like between the squares in Through the Looking-glass,' saidAnthea.
At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the otherorchards. It had a low building in one corner.
'These are vines,' said Cyril superiorly, 'and I know this is avineyard. I shouldn't wonder if there was a wine-press inside that placeover there.'
At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, veryrough, and not at all like the roads you are used to. It had cypresstrees and acacia trees along it, and a sort of hedge of tamarisks,like those you see on the road between Nice and Cannes, or nearLittlehampton, if you've only been as far as that.
And now in front of them they could see a great mass of buildings.There were scattered houses of wood and stone here and there among greenorchards, and beyond these a great wall that shone red in the earlymorning sun. The wall was enormously high--more than half the height ofSt Paul's--and in the wall were set enormous gates that shone like goldas the rising sun beat on them. Each gate had a solid square tower oneach side of it that stood out from the wall and rose above it. Beyondthe wall were more towers and houses, gleaming with gold and brightcolours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue swirl of a great river.And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, that the riverflowed out from the town under a great arch in the wall.
'Those feathery things along by the water are palms,' said Cyrilinstructively.
'Oh, yes; you know everything,' Robert replied. 'What's all thatgrey-green stuff you see away over there, where it's all flat andsandy?'
'All right,' said Cyril loftily, '_I_ don't want to tell you anything. Ionly thought you'd like to know a palm-tree when you saw it again.'
'Look!' cried Anthea; 'they're opening the gates.'
And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and instantlya little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and along the roadtowards them.
The children, with one accord, crouched behind the tamarisk hedge.
'I don't like the sound of those gates,' said Jane. 'Fancy being insidewhen they shut. You'd never get out.'
'You've got an arch of your own to go out by,' the Psammead put its headout of the basket to remind her. 'Don't behave so like a girl. If I wereyou I should just march right into the town and ask to see the king.'
There was something at once simple and grand about this idea, and
itpleased everyone.
So when the work-people had passed (they WERE work-people, the childrenfelt sure, because they were dressed so plainly--just one long blueshirt thing--of blue or yellow) the four children marched boldly up tothe brazen gate between the towers. The arch above the gate was quite atunnel, the walls were so thick.
'Courage,' said Cyril. 'Step out. It's no use trying to sneak past. Bebold!'
Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into 'The BritishGrenadiers', and to its quick-step they approached the gates of Babylon.
'Some talk of Alexander, And some of Hercules, Of Hector and Lysander, And such great names as these. But of all the gallant heroes...'
This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in brightarmour suddenly barred their way with crossed spears.
'Who goes there?' they said.
(I think I must have explained to you before how it was that thechildren were always able to understand the language of any place theymight happen to be in, and to be themselves understood. If not, I haveno time to explain it now.)
'We come from very far,' said Cyril mechanically. 'From the Empire wherethe sun never sets, and we want to see your King.'
'If it's quite convenient,' amended Anthea. 'The King (may he live forever!),' said the gatekeeper, 'is gone to fetch home his fourteenthwife. Where on earth have you come from not to know that?'
'The Queen then,' said Anthea hurriedly, and not taking any notice ofthe question as to where they had come from.
'The Queen,' said the gatekeeper, '(may she live for ever!) givesaudience today three hours after sunrising.'
'But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?' asked Cyril.
The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared lessinterested in them than they could have thought possible. But the manwho had crossed spears with him to bar the children's way was morehuman.
'Let them go in and look about them,' he said. 'I'll wager my best swordthey've never seen anything to come near our little--village.' He saidit in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean the'herring pond'.
The gatekeeper hesitated.
'They're only children, after all,' said the other, who had children ofhis own. 'Let me off for a few minutes, Captain, and I'll take themto my place and see if my good woman can't fit them up in something alittle less outlandish than their present rig. Then they can have a lookround without being mobbed. May I go?'
'Oh yes, if you like,' said the Captain, 'but don't be all day.'
The man led them through the dark arch into the town. And it was verydifferent from London. For one thing, everything in London seems to bepatched up out of odds and ends, but these houses seemed to have beenbuilt by people who liked the same sort of things. Not that they wereall alike, for though all were squarish, they were of different sizes,and decorated in all sorts of different ways, some with paintings inbright colours, some with black and silver designs. There were terraces,and gardens, and balconies, and open spaces with trees. Their guide tookthem to a little house in a back street, where a kind-faced woman satspinning at the door of a very dark room.
'Here,' he said, 'just lend these children a mantle each, so that theycan go about and see the place till the Queen's audience begins. Youleave that wool for a bit, and show them round if you like. I must beoff now.'
The woman did as she was told, and the four children, wrapped in fringedmantles, went with her all about the town, and oh! how I wish I had timeto tell you all that they saw. It was all so wonderfully differentfrom anything you have ever seen. For one thing, all the houses weredazzlingly bright, and many of them covered with pictures. Some hadgreat creatures carved in stone at each side of the door. Then thepeople--there were no black frock-coats and tall hats; no dingy coatsand skirts of good, useful, ugly stuffs warranted to wear. Everyone'sclothes were bright and beautiful with blue and scarlet and green andgold.
The market was brighter than you would think anything could be. Therewere stalls for everything you could possibly want--and for a great manythings that if you wanted here and now, want would be your master. Therewere pineapples and peaches in heaps--and stalls of crockery and glassthings, beautiful shapes and glorious colours, there were stalls fornecklaces, and clasps, and bracelets, and brooches, for woven stuffs,and furs, and embroidered linen. The children had never seen half somany beautiful things together, even at Liberty's. It seemed no time atall before the woman said--
'It's nearly time now. We ought to be getting on towards the palace.It's as well to be early.' So they went to the palace, and when they gotthere it was more splendid than anything they had seen yet.
For it was glowing with colours, and with gold and silver and black andwhite--like some magnificent embroidery. Flight after flight of broadmarble steps led up to it, and at the edges of the stairs stood greatimages, twenty times as big as a man--images of men with wings likechain armour, and hawks' heads, and winged men with the heads of dogs.And there were the statues of great kings.
Between the flights of steps were terraces where fountains played, andthe Queen's Guard in white and scarlet, and armour that shone like gold,stood by twos lining the way up the stairs; and a great body of them wasmassed by the vast door of the palace itself, where it stood glitteringlike an impossibly radiant peacock in the noon-day sun.
All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of theQueen. Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy flounces, poorfolks in plain and simple clothes, dandies with beards oiled and curled.
And Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane, went with the crowd.
At the gate of the palace the Psammead put one eye cautiously out of thebasket and whispered--
'I can't be bothered with queens. I'll go home with this lady. I'm sureshe'll get me some sand if you ask her to.'
'Oh! don't leave us,' said Jane. The woman was giving some lastinstructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane.
'Don't be a little muff,' said the Psammead quite fiercely. 'It's not abit of good your having a charm. You never use it. If you want me you'veonly got to say the name of power and ask the charm to bring me to you.'
'I'd rather go with you,' said Jane. And it was the most surprisingthing she had ever said in her life.
Everyone opened its mouth without thinking of manners, and Anthea, whowas peeping into the Psammead's basket, saw that its mouth opened widerthan anybody's.
'You needn't gawp like that,' Jane went on. 'I'm not going to bebothered with queens any more than IT is. And I know, wherever it is,it'll take jolly good care that it's safe.'
'She's right there,' said everyone, for they had observed that thePsammead had a way of knowing which side its bread was buttered.
She turned to the woman and said, 'You'll take me home with you, won'tyou? And let me play with your little girls till the others have donewith the Queen.'
'Surely I will, little heart!' said the woman.
And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, whotook the woman's hand, and trotted contentedly away with the Psammead'sbag under the other arm.
The others stood looking after her till she, the woman, and the basketwere lost in the many-coloured crowd. Then Anthea turned once more tothe palace's magnificent doorway and said--
'Let's ask the porter to take care of our Babylonian overcoats.'
So they took off the garments that the woman had lent them and stoodamid the jostling petitioners of the Queen in their own English frocksand coats and hats and boots.
'We want to see the Queen,' said Cyril; 'we come from the far Empirewhere the sun never sets!'
A murmur of surprise and a thrill of excitement ran through the crowd.The door-porter spoke to a black man, he spoke to someone else. Therewas a whispering, waiting pause. Then a big man, with a cleanly-shavenface, beckoned them from the top of a flight of red marble steps.
They went up; the boots of Robert clattering more than usual because
hewas so nervous. A door swung open, a curtain was drawn back. A doubleline of bowing forms in gorgeous raiment formed a lane that led to thesteps of the throne, and as the children advanced hurriedly there camefrom the throne a voice very sweet and kind.
'Three children from the land where the sun never sets! Let them drawhither without fear.'
In another minute they were kneeling at the throne's foot, saying,'O Queen, live for ever!' exactly as the woman had taught them. And asplendid dream-lady, all gold and silver and jewels and snowy drift ofveils, was raising Anthea, and saying--
'Don't be frightened, I really am SO glad you came! The land wherethe sun never sets! I am delighted to see you! I was getting quite toodreadfully bored for anything!'
And behind Anthea the kneeling Cyril whispered in the ears of therespectful Robert--
'Bobs, don't say anything to Panther. It's no use upsetting her, but wedidn't ask for Jane's address, and the Psammead's with her.'
'Well,' whispered Robert, 'the charm can bring them to us at any moment.IT said so.'
'Oh, yes,' whispered Cyril, in miserable derision, 'WE'RE all right, ofcourse. So we are! Oh, yes! If we'd only GOT the charm.'
Then Robert saw, and he murmured, 'Crikey!' at the foot of the throne ofBabylon; while Cyril hoarsely whispered the plain English fact--
'Jane's got the charm round her neck, you silly cuckoo.'
'Crikey!' Robert repeated in heart-broken undertones.