ic, is it not?' said the priest.
'Now if I bring you to Pharaoh the little unpleasantness I spoke of will
be forgotten. And I will ask Pharaoh, the Great House, Son of the Sun,
and Lord of the South and North, to decree that you shall lodge in the
Temple. Then you can have a good look round, and teach me your magic.
And I will teach you mine.'

This idea seemed good--at least it was better than any other which at
that moment occurred to anybody, so they followed the priest through the
city.

The streets were very narrow and dirty. The best houses, the priest
explained, were built within walls twenty to twenty-five feet high,
and such windows as showed in the walls were very high up. The tops of
palm-trees showed above the walls. The poor people's houses were little
square huts with a door and two windows, and smoke coming out of a hole
in the back.

'The poor Egyptians haven't improved so very much in their building
since the first time we came to Egypt,' whispered Cyril to Anthea.

The huts were roofed with palm branches, and everywhere there were
chickens, and goats, and little naked children kicking about in the
yellow dust. On one roof was a goat, who had climbed up and was eating
the dry palm-leaves with snorts and head-tossings of delight. Over every
house door was some sort of figure or shape.

'Amulets,' the priest explained, 'to keep off the evil eye.'

'I don't think much of your "nice Egypt",' Robert whispered to Jane;
'it's simply not a patch on Babylon.'

'Ah, you wait till you see the palace,' Jane whispered back.

The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they had yet
seen that day, though it would have made but a poor show beside that
of the Babylonian King. They came to it through a great square pillared
doorway of sandstone that stood in a high brick wall. The shut doors
were of massive cedar, with bronze hinges, and were studded with bronze
nails. At the side was a little door and a wicket gate, and through
this the priest led the children. He seemed to know a word that made the
sentries make way for him.

Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of trees
and flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus flowers at
the margin, and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and looking, as Jane
said, quite modern.

'The guard-chamber, the store-houses, the queen's house,' said the
priest, pointing them out.

They passed through open courtyards, paved wi