' she insisted.

Then the Psammead was coaxed into its bag. 'I say,' said Cyril suddenly,
'I'm rather sick of kings. And people notice you so in palaces. Besides
the Amulet's sure to be in a Temple. Let's just go among the common
people, and try to work ourselves up by degrees. We might get taken on
as Temple assistants.'

'Like beadles,' said Anthea, 'or vergers. They must have splendid
chances of stealing the Temple treasures.'

'Righto!' was the general rejoinder. The charm was held up. It grew big
once again, and once again the warm golden Eastern light glowed softly
beyond it.

As the children stepped through it loud and furious voices rang in their
ears. They went suddenly from the quiet of Fitzroy Street dining-room
into a very angry Eastern crowd, a crowd much too angry to notice them.
They edged through it to the wall of a house and stood there. The crowd
was of men, women, and children. They were of all sorts of complexions,
and pictures of them might have been coloured by any child with
a shilling paint-box. The colours that child would have used for
complexions would have been yellow ochre, red ochre, light red, sepia,
and indian ink. But their faces were painted already--black eyebrows
and lashes, and some red lips. The women wore a sort of pinafore with
shoulder straps, and loose things wound round their heads and shoulders.
The men wore very little clothing--for they were the working people--and
the Egyptian boys and girls wore nothing at all, unless you count
the little ornaments hung on chains round their necks and waists. The
children saw all this before they could hear anything distinctly.

Everyone was shouting so.

But a voice sounded above the other voices, and presently it was
speaking in a silence.

'Comrades and fellow workers,' it said, and it was the voice of a
tall, coppery-coloured man who had climbed into a chariot that had been
stopped by the crowd. Its owner had bolted, muttering something about
calling the Guards, and now the man spoke from it. 'Comrades and fellow
workers, how long are we to endure the tyranny of our masters, who live
in idleness and luxury on the fruit of our toil? They only give us a
bare subsistence wage, and they live on the fat of the land. We labour
all our lives to keep them in wanton luxury. Let us make an end of it!'

A roar of applause answered him.

'How are you going to do it?' cried a voice.

'You look out,' cried another, 'or you'll get yoursel