d-peppered leaves. Away to the right
was something that looked like a grey-brown hedge, and from beyond it
blue smoke went up to the bluer sky. And over all the sun shone till you
could hardly bear your clothes.

'That is where I live,' said the girl pointing.

'I won't go,' whispered Jane into the basket, 'unless you say it's all
right.'

The Psammead ought to have been touched by this proof of confidence.
Perhaps, however, it looked upon it as a proof of doubt, for it merely
snarled--

'If you don't go now I'll never help you again.'

'OH,' whispered Anthea, 'dear Jane, don't! Think of Father and Mother
and all of us getting our heart's desire. And we can go back any minute.
Come on!'

'Besides,' said Cyril, in a low voice, 'the Psammead must know there's
no danger or it wouldn't go. It's not so over and above brave itself.
Come on!'

This Jane at last consented to do.

As they got nearer to the browny fence they saw that it was a great
hedge about eight feet high, made of piled-up thorn bushes.

'What's that for?' asked Cyril.

'To keep out foes and wild beasts,' said the girl.

'I should think it ought to, too,' said he. 'Why, some of the thorns are
as long as my foot.'

There was an opening in the hedge, and they followed the girl through
it. A little way further on was another hedge, not so high, also of dry
thorn bushes, very prickly and spiteful-looking, and within this was a
sort of village of huts.

There were no gardens and no roads. Just huts built of wood and twigs
and clay, and roofed with great palm-leaves, dumped down anywhere. The
doors of these houses were very low, like the doors of dog-kennels.
The ground between them was not paths or streets, but just yellow sand
trampled very hard and smooth.

In the middle of the village there was a hedge that enclosed what seemed
to be a piece of ground about as big as their own garden in Camden Town.

No sooner were the children well within the inner thorn hedge than
dozens of men and women and children came crowding round from behind and
inside the huts.

The girl stood protectingly in front of the four children, and said--

'They are wonder-children from beyond the desert. They bring marvellous
gifts, and I have said that it is peace between us and them.'

She held out her arm with the Lowther Arcade bangle on it.

The children from London, where nothing now surprises anyone, had never
before seen so many people look so astonished.