ked at the pistol and said--

'If we are to guard the sacred treasure within'--he pointed to the
hedged-in space--'speak with thy loud voice, and we shall obey.'

He pulled the trigger, and the cap went off. The noise was loud, for it
was a two-shilling pistol, and the caps were excellent.

Every man, woman, and child in the village fell on its face on the sand.
The headman who had accepted the test rose first.

'The voice has spoken,' he said. 'Lead them into the ante-room of the
sacred thing.'

So now the four children were led in through the opening of the hedge
and round the lane till they came to an opening in the inner hedge, and
they went through an opening in that, and so passed into another lane.

The thing was built something like this, and all the hedges were of
brushwood and thorns: [Drawing of maze omitted.]

'It's like the maze at Hampton Court,' whispered Anthea.

The lanes were all open to the sky, but the little hut in the middle of
the maze was round-roofed, and a curtain of skins hung over the doorway.

'Here you may wait,' said their guide, 'but do not dare to pass the
curtain.' He himself passed it and disappeared.

'But look here,' whispered Cyril, 'some of us ought to be outside in
case the Psammead turns up.'

'Don't let's get separated from each other, whatever we do,' said
Anthea. 'It's quite bad enough to be separated from the Psammead. We
can't do anything while that man is in there. Let's all go out into
the village again. We can come back later now we know the way in.
That man'll have to fight like the rest, most likely, if it comes to
fighting. If we find the Psammead we'll go straight home.

It must be getting late, and I don't much like this mazy place.'

They went out and told the headman that they would protect the treasure
when the fighting began. And now they looked about them and were able
to see exactly how a first-class worker in flint flakes and notches an
arrow-head or the edge of an axe--an advantage which no other person now
alive has ever enjoyed. The boys found the weapons most interesting.
The arrow-heads were not on arrows such as you shoot from a bow, but
on javelins, for throwing from the hand. The chief weapon was a stone
fastened to a rather short stick something like the things gentlemen
used to carry about and call life-preservers in the days of the
garrotters.

Then there were long things like spears or lances, with flint
knives--horribly sharp--and