The crowd swept through the streets of dull-looking houses with few windows, very high up, across the market where people were not buying but exchanging goods. In a momentary pause Robert saw a basket of onions exchanged for a hair comb and five fish for a string of beads. The people in the market seemed better off than those in the crowd; they had finer clothes, and more of them. They were the kind of people who, nowadays, would have lived at Brixton or Brockley. “What’s the trouble now?” a languid, large-eyed lady in a crimped, half-transparent linen dress, with her black hair very much braided and puffed out, asked of a date-seller. “Oh, the working-men—discontented as usual,” the man answered. “Listen to them. Anyone would think it mattered whether they had a little more or less to eat. Dregs of society!” said the date-seller. “Scum!” said the lady. “And I’ve heard _that_ before, too,” said Robert. At that moment the voice of the crowd changed, from anger to doubt, from doubt to fear. There were other voices shouting; they shouted defiance and menace, and they came nearer very quickly. There was the rattle of wheels and the pounding of hoofs. A voice shouted, “Guards!” “The Guards! The Guards!” shouted another voice, and the crowd of workmen took up the cry. “The Guards! Pharaoh’s Guards!” And swaying a little once more, the crowd hung for a moment as it were balanced. Then as the trampling hoofs came nearer the workmen fled dispersed, up alleys and into the courts of houses, and the Guards in their embossed leather chariots swept down the street at the gallop, their wheels clattering over the stones, and their dark-coloured, blue tunics blown open and back with the wind of their going. “So _that_ riot’s over,” said the crimped-linen-dressed lady; “that’s a blessing! And did you notice the Captain of the Guard? What a very handsome man he was, to be sure!” The four children had taken advantage of the moment’s pause before the crowd turned to fly, to edge themselves and drag each other into an arched doorway. Now they each drew a long breath and looked at the others. “We’re well out of _that_,” said Cyril. “Yes,” said Anthea, “but I do wish the poor men hadn’t been driven back before they could get to the King. He might have done something for them.” “Not if he was the one in the Bible he wouldn’t,” said Jane. “He had a hard heart.” “Ah, that was the Moses one,” Anthea explained. “The Joseph one was quite different. I should like to see Pharaoh’s house. I wonder whether it’s like the Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace.” “I thought we decided to try to get taken on in a Temple,” said Cyril in injured tones.