unning river.

'No, stop!' said Cyril, and pulled down jane's hand with the Amulet in
it.

'What silly cuckoos we all are,' he said. 'Of course we can't go. We
daren't leave home for a single minute now, for fear that minute should
be THE minute.'

'What minute be WHAT minute?' asked Jane impatiently, trying to get her
hand away from Cyril.

'The minute when the Queen of Babylon comes,' said Cyril. And then
everyone saw it.

For some days life flowed in a very slow, dusty, uneventful stream.

The children could never go out all at once, because they never knew
when the King of Babylon would go out lion hunting and leave his Queen
free to pay them that surprise visit to which she was, without doubt,
eagerly looking forward.

So they took it in turns, two and two, to go out and to stay in.

The stay-at-homes would have been much duller than they were but for the
new interest taken in them by the learned gentleman.

He called Anthea in one day to show her a beautiful necklace of purple
and gold beads.

'I saw one like that,' she said, 'in--'

'In the British Museum, perhaps?'

'I like to call the place where I saw it Babylon,' said Anthea
cautiously.

'A pretty fancy,' said the learned gentleman, 'and quite correct too,
because, as a matter of fact, these beads did come from Babylon.' The
other three were all out that day. The boys had been going to the Zoo,
and Jane had said so plaintively, 'I'm sure I am fonder of rhinoceroses
than either of you are,' that Anthea had told her to run along then.
And she had run, catching the boys before that part of the road where
Fitzroy Street suddenly becomes Fitzroy Square.

'I think Babylon is most frightfully interesting,' said Anthea. 'I do
have such interesting dreams about it--at least, not dreams exactly, but
quite as wonderful.'

'Do sit down and tell me,' said he. So she sat down and told. And he
asked her a lot of questions, and she answered them as well as she
could.

'Wonderful--wonderful!' he said at last. 'One's heard of
thought-transference, but I never thought _I_ had any power of that
sort. Yet it must be that, and very bad for YOU, I should think. Doesn't
your head ache very much?'

He suddenly put a cold, thin hand on her forehead.

'No thank you, not at all,' said she.

'I assure you it is not done intentionally,' he went on. 'Of course I
know a good deal about Babylon, and I unconsciously communicate it to
you; you've heard of thought-r