down
dead.'

'But what are guns like?'

Jane found them hard to describe.

'But Robert has a toy one in his pocket,' she said. So the others were
recalled.

The boys explained the pistol to Caesar very fully, and he looked at it
with the greatest interest. It was a two-shilling pistol, the one that
had done such good service in the old Egyptian village.

'I shall cause guns to be made,' said Caesar, 'and you will be detained
till I know whether you have spoken the truth. I had just decided that
Britain was not worth the bother of invading. But what you tell me
decides me that it is very much worth while.'

'But it's all nonsense,' said Anthea. 'Britain is just a savage sort of
island--all fogs and trees and big rivers. But the people are kind. We
know a little girl there named Imogen. And it's no use your making
guns because you can't fire them without gunpowder, and that won't be
invented for hundreds of years, and we don't know how to make it, and
we can't tell you. Do go straight home, dear Caesar, and let poor little
Britain alone.'

'But this other girl-child says--' said Caesar.

'All Jane's been telling you is what it's going to be,' Anthea
interrupted, 'hundreds and hundreds of years from now.'

'The little one is a prophetess, eh?' said Caesar, with a whimsical
look. 'Rather young for the business, isn't she?'

'You can call her a prophetess if you like,' said Cyril, 'but what
Anthea says is true.'

'Anthea?' said Caesar. 'That's a Greek name.'

'Very likely,' said Cyril, worriedly. 'I say, I do wish you'd give up
this idea of conquering Britain. It's not worth while, really it isn't!'

'On the contrary,' said Caesar, 'what you've told me has decided me to
go, if it's only to find out what Britain is really like. Guards, detain
these children.'

'Quick,' said Robert, 'before the guards begin detaining. We had enough
of that in Babylon.'

Jane held up the Amulet away from the sunset, and said the word. The
learned gentleman was pushed through and the others more quickly than
ever before passed through the arch back into their own times and the
quiet dusty sitting-room of the learned gentleman.

It is a curious fact that when Caesar was encamped on the coast of
Gaul--somewhere near Boulogne it was, I believe--he was sitting before
his tent in the glow of the sunset, looking out over the violet waters
of the English Channel. Suddenly he started, rubbed his eyes, and called
his secretary. T