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a familiar word just now? Were you not singing some old ballad of Babylon?'
'No, said Robert, at least Jane was singing How many miles, but I shouldn't have thought you could
have heard the words for-'
He would have said, for the sniffing, but Anthea pinched him just in time.
'I did not hear ALL the words, said the learned gentleman. I wonder would 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!'
'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 a great and beautiful city, and the
centre of learning and Art, and now it is only ruins, and so covered up with earth that people are not even
agreed as to where it once stood.'
He was leaning on the banisters, and his eyes had a far-away look in them, as though he could see
through the staircase window the splendour and 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 have been found in very early Egyptian
tombs, yet their origin has not been accurately determined as Egyptian. They may have been brought
from Asia. Or, supposing the charm to have been fashioned in Egypt, it might very well have been carried
to Babylon by some friendly embassy, or brought back by the Babylonish army from some Egyptian
campaign as part of the spoils 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 once used amid Babylonish surroundings. The
others looked at each other, but it was Jane who spoke.
'Were the Babylon people savages, were they always fighting and throwing things about? For she had
read the thoughts of the others by the unerring light of her own fears.
'The Babylonians were certainly more gentle than the Assyrians, said the learned gentleman. And they
were not savages by any means. A very high level of culture, he looked doubtfully at his audience and
went on, I mean that they made beautiful statues and jewellery, and built splendid palaces. And they
were very learned-they had glorious libraries and high towers for the purpose of astrological and
astronomical observation.'
'Er? said Robert.
'I mean for-star-gazing and fortune-telling, said the learned gentleman, and there were temples and
beautiful hanging gardens-'
'I'll go to Babylon if you like, said Jane abruptly, and the others hastened to say Done! before she
should have time to change her mind.
'Ah, said the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, one can go so far in dreams, when one is young.
He sighed again, and then adding with a laboured briskness, I hope you'll have a-a-jolly game, he went
into his room and shut the door.
'He said jolly as if it was a foreign language, said Cyril. Come on, let's get the Psammead and go
now. I think Babylon seems a most frightfully jolly place to go to.'
So they woke the Psammead and put it in its bass-bag with the waterproof sheet, in case of inclement
weather in Babylon. It was very cross, but it said it would as soon go to Babylon as anywhere else. The
sand is good 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 we don'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 charm could do nothing.
'Ur-Hekau-Setcheh! she said softly, and as she spoke the charm grew into an arch so tall that the top of
it was close against the bedroom ceiling. Outside the arch was the bedroom painted chest-of-drawers
and the Kidderminster carpet, and the washhand-stand with the riveted willow-pattern jug, and the faded
curtains, and the dull light of indoors on a wet day. Through the arch showed the gleam of soft green
leaves and white blossoms. They stepped forward quite happily. Even Jane felt that this did not look like
lions, and her hand hardly trembled at 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-leafed fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an
orchard of such trees, all white-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long green grass under their feet
grew crocuses and lilies, and strange blue flowers. In the branches overhead thrushes and blackbirds
were singing, and the coo of a pigeon 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 Jane admitted that it was all very pretty.
'I'm certain there's nothing to be frightened of here, said Anthea. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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