g her brush
again.

'I don't believe it,' said Cyril to Robert.

'Have a suck yourself,' suggested Robert.

'I don't mean about the Chinese white. I mean about the cream fish
turning purple and--'

'Oh!' cried Anthea, jumping up very quickly, 'I'm tired of painting.
Let's go somewhere by Amulet. I say let's let IT choose.'

Cyril and Robert agreed that this was an idea. Jane consented to stop
painting because, as she said, Chinese white, though certainly sweet,
gives you a queer feeling in the back of the throat if you paint with it
too long.

The Amulet was held up. 'Take us somewhere,' said Jane, 'anywhere you
like in the Past--but somewhere where you are.' Then she said the word.

Next moment everyone felt a queer rocking and swaying--something like
what you feel when you go out in a fishing boat. And that was not
wonderful, when you come to think of it, for it was in a boat that they
found themselves. A queer boat, with high bulwarks pierced with holes
for oars to go through. There was a high seat for the steersman, and
the prow was shaped like the head of some great animal with big, staring
eyes. The boat rode at anchor in a bay, and the bay was very smooth.
The crew were dark, wiry fellows with black beards and hair. They had no
clothes except a tunic from waist to knee, and round caps with knobs
on the top. They were very busy, and what they were doing was so
interesting to the children that at first they did not even wonder where
the Amulet had brought them. And the crew seemed too busy to notice the
children. They were fastening rush baskets to a long rope with a great
piece of cork at the end, and in each basket they put mussels or little
frogs. Then they cast out the rope, the baskets sank, but the cork
floated. And all about on the blue water were other boats and all the
crews of all the boats were busy with ropes and baskets and frogs and
mussels.

'Whatever are you doing?' Jane suddenly asked a man who had rather more
clothes than the others, and seemed to be a sort of captain or overseer.
He started and stared at her, but he had seen too many strange lands to
be very much surprised at these queerly-dressed stowaways.

'Setting lines for the dye shell-fish,' he said shortly. 'How did you
get here?'

'A sort of magic,' said Robert carelessly. The Captain fingered an
Amulet that hung round his neck.

'What is this place?' asked Cyril.

'Tyre, of course,' said the man. Then he drew back and sp