er on a rain-wrinkled window-pane, as
one bead of quick-silver is drawn into another bead, Rekh-mara's Amulet
slipped into the other one, and, behold! there was no more but the one
Amulet!

'Black magic!' cried Rekh-mara, and sprang forward to snatch the Amulet
that had swallowed his. But Anthea caught it up, and at the same moment
the Priest was jerked back by a rope thrown over his head. It drew,
tightened with the pull of his forward leap, and bound his elbows to his
sides. Before he had time to use his strength to free himself, Robert
had knotted the cord behind him and tied it to the bedpost. Then the
four children, overcoming the priest's wrigglings and kickings, tied his
legs with more rope.

'I thought,' said Robert, breathing hard, and drawing the last knot
tight, 'he'd have a try for OURS, so I got the ropes out of the
box-room, so as to be ready.'

The girls, with rather white faces, applauded his foresight.

'Loosen these bonds!' cried Rekh-mara in fury, 'before I blast you with
the seven secret curses of Amen-Ra!'

'We shouldn't be likely to loose them AFTER,' Robert retorted.

'Oh, don't quarrel!' said Anthea desperately. 'Look here, he has just as
much right to the thing as we have. This,' she took up the Amulet that
had swallowed the other one, 'this has got his in it as well as being
ours. Let's go shares.'

'Let me go!' cried the Priest, writhing.

'Now, look here,' said Robert, 'if you make a row we can just open that
window and call the police--the guards, you know--and tell them you've
been trying to rob us. NOW will you shut up and listen to reason?'

'I suppose so,' said Rekh-mara sulkily.

But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered counsel had been
held in the far corner by the washhand-stand and the towel-horse, a
counsel rather long and very earnest.

At last Anthea detached herself from the group, and went back to the
Priest.

'Look here,' she said in her kind little voice, 'we want to be friends.
We want to help you. Let's make a treaty. Let's join together to get the
Amulet--the whole one, I mean. And then it shall belong to you as much
as to us, and we shall all get our hearts' desire.'

'Fair words,' said the Priest, 'grow no onions.'

'WE say, "Butter no parsnips",' Jane put in. 'But don't you see we WANT
to be fair? Only we want to bind you in the chains of honour and upright
dealing.'

'Will you deal fairly by us?' said Robert.

'I will,' said the Priest