after flight of broad
marble steps led up to it, and at the edges of the stairs stood great
images, twenty times as big as a man--images of men with wings like
chain 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, and
the 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 was
massed by the vast door of the palace itself, where it stood glittering
like an impossibly radiant peacock in the noon-day sun.

All sorts of people were passing up the steps to seek audience of the
Queen. Ladies in richly-embroidered dresses with fringy flounces, poor
folks 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 the
basket and whispered--

'I can't be bothered with queens. I'll go home with this lady. I'm sure
she'll get me some sand if you ask her to.'

'Oh! don't leave us,' said Jane. The woman was giving some last
instructions in Court etiquette to Anthea, and did not hear Jane.

'Don't be a little muff,' said the Psammead quite fiercely. 'It's not a
bit of good your having a charm. You never use it. If you want me you've
only 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 surprising
thing she had ever said in her life.

Everyone opened its mouth without thinking of manners, and Anthea, who
was peeping into the Psammead's basket, saw that its mouth opened wider
than anybody's.

'You needn't gawp like that,' Jane went on. 'I'm not going to be
bothered 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 the
Psammead 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't
you? And let me play with your little girls till the others have done
with the Queen.'

'Surely I will, little heart!' said the woman.

And then Anthea hurriedly stroked the Psammead and embraced Jane, who
took the woman's hand, and trotted contentedly away with the Psammead's
bag under the other arm.

The others stood looking after h