ou don't let it go as you come
through.'

He made a step forward, but at that instant a great crackling overhead
ended in a blaze of sunlight. The roof had been broken in at one side,
and great slabs of it were being lifted off by two spears. As the
children trembled and winked in the new light, large dark hands tore
down the wall, and a dark face, with a blobby fat nose, looked over the
gap. Even at that awful moment Anthea had time to think that it was very
like the face of Mr Jacob Absalom, who had sold them the charm in the
shop near Charing Cross.

'Here is their Amulet,' cried a harsh, strange voice; 'it is this that
makes them strong to fight and brave to die. And what else have we
here--gods or demons?'

He glared fiercely at the children, and the whites of his eyes were very
white indeed. He had a wet, red copper knife in his teeth. There was not
a moment to lose.

'Jane, JANE, QUICK!' cried everyone passionately.

Jane with trembling hands held up the charm towards the East, and Cyril
spoke the word of power. The Amulet grew to a great arch. Out beyond
it was the glaring Egyptian sky, the broken wall, the cruel, dark,
big-nosed face with the red, wet knife in its gleaming teeth. Within the
arch was the dull, faint, greeny-brown of London grass and trees.

'Hold tight, Jane!' Cyril cried, and he dashed through the arch,
dragging Anthea and the Psammead after him. Robert followed, clutching
Jane. And in the ears of each, as they passed through the arch of the
charm, the sound and fury of battle died out suddenly and utterly, and
they heard only the low, dull, discontented hum of vast London, and the
peeking and patting of the sparrows on the gravel and the voices of the
ragged baby children playing Ring-o'-Roses on the yellow trampled grass.
And the charm was a little charm again in Jane's hand, and there was the
basket with their dinner and the bathbuns lying just where they had left
it.

'My hat!' said Cyril, drawing a long breath; 'that was something like an
adventure.'

'It was rather like one, certainly,' said the Psammead.

They all lay still, breathing in the safe, quiet air of Regent's Park.

'We'd better go home at once,' said Anthea presently. 'Old Nurse will be
most frightfully anxious. The sun looks about the same as it did when
we started yesterday. We've been away twenty-four hours.' 'The buns are
quite soft still,' said Cyril, feeling one; 'I suppose the dew kept them
fresh.'

They