“Quick, the Amulet,” cried Anthea, and held it up. Rekh-marā held up the one he had snatched from Pheles. The word was spoken, and the two great arches grew on the plunging ship in the shrieking wind under the dark sky. From each Amulet a great and beautiful green light streamed and shone far out over the waves. It illuminated, too, the black faces and jagged teeth of the great rocks that lay not two ships’ lengths from the boat’s peaked nose. “Tyre, Tyre for ever! It’s Tyre that rules the waves!” the voices of the doomed rose in a triumphant shout. The children scrambled through the arch, and stood trembling and blinking in the Fitzroy Street parlour, and in their ears still sounded the whistle of the wind, and the rattle of the oars, the crash of the ships bow on the rocks, and the last shout of the brave gentlemen-adventurers who went to their deaths singing, for the sake of the city they loved. “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 forget,” said Jane. “I don’t,” said the Psammead. “You said, ‘Take us where _you_ are’—and it did, so you see it was the same half.” “I see,” said Anthea. “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. CHAPTER XIV. THE HEART’S DESIRE