ust one long blue
shirt thing--of blue or yellow) the four children marched boldly up to
the brazen gate between the towers. The arch above the gate was quite a
tunnel, the walls were so thick.

'Courage,' said Cyril. 'Step out. It's no use trying to sneak past. Be
bold!'

Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into 'The British
Grenadiers', and to its quick-step they approached the gates of Babylon.

'Some talk of Alexander,
And some of Hercules,
Of Hector and Lysander,
And such great names as these.
But of all the gallant heroes...'

This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in bright
armour suddenly barred their way with crossed spears.

'Who goes there?' they said.

(I think I must have explained to you before how it was that the
children were always able to understand the language of any place they
might happen to be in, and to be themselves understood. If not, I have
no time to explain it now.)

'We come from very far,' said Cyril mechanically. 'From the Empire where
the sun never sets, and we want to see your King.'

'If it's quite convenient,' amended Anthea. 'The King (may he live for
ever!),' said the gatekeeper, 'is gone to fetch home his fourteenth
wife. Where on earth have you come from not to know that?'

'The Queen then,' said Anthea hurriedly, and not taking any notice of
the question as to where they had come from.

'The Queen,' said the gatekeeper, '(may she live for ever!) gives
audience today three hours after sunrising.'

'But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?' asked Cyril.

The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared less
interested in them than they could have thought possible. But the man
who had crossed spears with him to bar the children's way was more
human.

'Let them go in and look about them,' he said. 'I'll wager my best sword
they've never seen anything to come near our little--village.' He said
it in the tone people use for when they call the Atlantic Ocean the
'herring pond'.

The gatekeeper hesitated.

'They're only children, after all,' said the other, who had children of
his own. 'Let me off for a few minutes, Captain, and I'll take them
to my place and see if my good woman can't fit them up in something a
little less outlandish than their present rig. Then they can have a look
round without being mobbed. May I go?'

'Oh yes, if you like,' said the Captain, 'but don't be all day.