“It doesn’t matter how cross and sandy it is though,” said Anthea, “it ought to be there at the final council.” “It’ll give the learned gentleman fits, I expect,” said Robert, “when he sees it.” But it didn’t. “The dream is growing more and more wonderful,” he exclaimed, when the Psammead had been explained to him by Rekh-marā. “I have dreamed this beast before.” “Now,” said Robert, “Jane has got the half Amulet and I’ve got the whole. Show up, Jane.” Jane untied the string and laid her half Amulet on the table, littered with dusty papers, and the clay cylinders marked all over with little marks like the little prints of birds’ little feet. Robert laid down the whole Amulet, and Anthea gently restrained the eager hand of the learned gentleman as it reached out yearningly towards the “perfect specimen”. And then, just as before on the Marcella quilt, so now on the dusty litter of papers and curiosities, the half Amulet quivered and shook, and then, as steel is drawn to a magnet, it was drawn across the dusty manuscripts, nearer and nearer to the perfect Amulet, warm from the pocket of Robert. And then, as one drop of water mingles with another when the panes of the window are wrinkled with rain, as one bead of mercury is drawn into another bead, the half Amulet, that was the children’s and was also Rekh-marā’s,—slipped into the whole Amulet, and, behold! there was only one—the perfect and ultimate Charm. “And _that’s_ all right,” said the Psammead, breaking a breathless silence. “Yes,” said Anthea, “and we’ve got our hearts’ desire. Father and Mother and The Lamb are coming home today.” “But what about me?” said Rekh-marā. “What _is_ your heart’s desire?” Anthea asked. “Great and deep learning,” said the Priest, without a moment’s hesitation. “A learning greater and deeper than that of any man of my land and my time. But learning too great is useless. If I go back to my own land and my own age, who will believe my tales of what I have seen in the future? Let me stay here, be the great knower of all that has been, in that our time, so living to me, so old to you, about which your learned men speculate unceasingly, and often, _he_ tells me, vainly.” “If I were you,” said the Psammead, “I should ask the Amulet about that. It’s a dangerous thing, trying to live in a time that’s not your own. You can’t breathe an air that’s thousands of centuries ahead of your lungs without feeling the effects of it, sooner or later. Prepare the mystic circle and consult the Amulet.” “Oh, _what_ a dream!” cried the learned gentleman. “Dear children, if you love me—and I think you do, in dreams and out of them—prepare the mystic circle and consult the Amulet!”