et round the Egyptian's
neck. One or two, or all these things, suddenly raised the children's
spirits. They went off quite cheerfully through the city gate--it was
not arched, but roofed over with a great flat stone--and so through the
street, which smelt horribly of fish and garlic and a thousand other
things even less agreeable. But far worse than the street scents was the
scent of the factory, where the skipper called in to sell his night's
catch. I wish I could tell you all about that factory, but I haven't
time, and perhaps after all you aren't interested in dyeing works. I
will only mention that Robert was triumphantly proved to be right. The
dye WAS a yellowish-white liquid of a creamy consistency, and it smelt
more strongly of garlic than garlic itself does.

While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works the
Egyptian came close to the children, and said, suddenly and softly--

'Trust me.'

'I wish we could,' said Anthea.

'You feel,' said the Egyptian, 'that I want your Amulet. That makes you
distrust me.'

'Yes,' said Cyril bluntly.

'But you also, you want my Amulet, and I am trusting you.'

'There's something in that,' said Robert.

'We have the two halves of the Amulet,' said the Priest, 'but not yet
the pin that joined them. Our only chance of getting that is to remain
together. Once part these two halves and they may never be found in the
same time and place. Be wise. Our interests are the same.'

Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him the
dye-master. His hair and beard were curled like the men's in Babylon,
and he was dressed like the skipper, but with added grandeur of gold
and embroidery. He had necklaces of beads and silver, and a glass amulet
with a man's face, very like his own, set between two bull's heads, as
well as gold and silver bracelets and armlets. He looked keenly at the
children. Then he said--

'My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He's at his garden
house--unless he's hunting wild boar in the marshes. He gets frightfully
bored on shore.'

'Ah,' said the skipper, 'he's a true-born Phoenician. "Tyre, Tyre for
ever! Oh, Tyre rules the waves!" as the old song says. I'll go at once,
and show him my young barbarians.'

'I should,' said the dye-master. 'They are very rum, aren't they? What
frightful clothes, and what a lot of them! Observe the covering of their
feet. Hideous indeed.'

Robert could not help thinking ho