ed gentleman, and he also held out his hands.

Each moved forward under the glowing, glorious arch of the perfect
Amulet.

Then Rekh-mara quavered and shook, and as steel is drawn to a magnet
he was drawn, under the arch of magic, nearer and nearer to the learned
gentleman. And, as one drop of water mingles with another, when the
window-glass is rain-wrinkled, as one quick-silver bead is drawn to
another quick-silver bead, Rekh-mara, Divine Father of the Temple of
Amen-Ra, was drawn into, slipped into, disappeared into, and was one
with Jimmy, the good, the beloved, the learned gentleman.

And suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone. The fog
has passed away like a dream.

The Amulet was there--little and complete in jane's hand, and there
were the other children and the Psammead, and the learned gentleman. But
Rekh-mara--or the body of Rekh-mara--was not there any more. As for his
soul...

'Oh, the horrid thing!' cried Robert, and put his foot on a centipede
as long as your finger, that crawled and wriggled and squirmed at the
learned gentleman's feet.

'THAT,' said the Psammead, 'WAS the evil in the soul of Rekh-mara.'

There was a deep silence.

'Then Rekh-mara's HIM now?' said Jane at last.

'All that was good in Rekh-mara,' said the Psammead.

'HE ought to have his heart's desire, too,' said Anthea, in a sort of
stubborn gentleness.

'HIS heart's desire,' said the Psammead, 'is the perfect Amulet you hold
in your hand. Yes--and has been ever since he first saw the broken half
of it.'

'We've got ours,' said Anthea softly.

'Yes,' said the Psammead--its voice was crosser than they had ever heard
it--'your parents are coming home. And what's to become of ME? I shall
be found out, and made a show of, and degraded in every possible way. I
KNOW they'll make me go into Parliament--hateful place--all mud and no
sand. That beautiful Baalbec temple in the desert! Plenty of good sand
there, and no politics! I wish I were there, safe in the Past--that I
do.'

'I wish you were,' said the learned gentleman absently, yet polite as
ever.

The Psammead swelled itself up, turned its long snail's eyes in one
last lingering look at Anthea--a loving look, she always said, and
thought--and--vanished.

'Well,' said Anthea, after a silence, 'I suppose it's happy. The only
thing it ever did really care for was SAND.'

'My dear children,' said the learned gentleman, 'I must have fallen
asleep. I've h