with people fleeing from the villages to the
mountains. And even as they fled thin smoke broke from the great white
peak, and then a faint flash of flame. Then the volcano began to throw
up its mysterious fiery inside parts. The earth trembled; ashes and
sulphur showered down; a rain of fine pumice-stone fell like snow on all
the dry land. The elephants from the forest rushed up towards the peaks;
great lizards thirty yards long broke from the mountain pools and
rushed down towards the sea. The snows melted and rushed down, first in
avalanches, then in roaring torrents. Great rocks cast up by the volcano
fell splashing in the sea miles away.

'Oh, this is horrible!' cried Anthea. 'Come home, come home!'

'The end of the dream,' gasped the learned gentleman.

'Hold up the Amulet,' cried the Psammead suddenly. The place where they
stood was now crowded with men and women, and the children were strained
tight against the parapet. The turret rocked and swayed; the wave had
reached the golden wall.

Jane held up the Amulet.

'Now,' cried the Psammead, 'say the word!'

And as Jane said it the Psammead leaped from its bag and bit the hand of
the learned gentleman.

At the same moment the boys pushed him through the arch and all followed
him.

He turned to look back, and through the arch he saw nothing but a waste
of waters, with above it the peak of the terrible mountain with fire
raging from it.

He staggered back to his chair.

'What a ghastly dream!' he gasped. 'Oh, you're here, my--er--dears. Can
I do anything for you?'

'You've hurt your hand,' said Anthea gently; 'let me bind it up.'

The hand was indeed bleeding rather badly.

The Psammead had crept back to its bag. All the children were very
white.

'Never again,' said the Psammead later on, 'will I go into the Past with
a grown-up person! I will say for you four, you do do as you're told.'

'We didn't even find the Amulet,' said Anthea later still.

'Of course you didn't; it wasn't there. Only the stone it was made of
was there. It fell on to a ship miles away that managed to escape and
got to Egypt. _I_ could have told you that.'

'I wish you had,' said Anthea, and her voice was still rather shaky.
'Why didn't you?'

'You never asked me,' said the Psammead very sulkily. 'I'm not the sort
of chap to go shoving my oar in where it's not wanted.'

'Mr Ji-jimmy's friend will have something worth having to put in his
article now,' said Cyril ve