s away
from the first, and then a third row still further out. Then all the
space between was filled up with small branches and twigs, and then
daubed over with black mud worked with the feet till it was soft and
sticky like putty.

The girl told them how the men went hunting with flint spears and
arrows, and how they made boats with reeds and clay. Then she explained
the reed thing in the river that she had taken the fish out of. It was a
fish-trap--just a ring of reeds set up in the water with only one little
opening in it, and in this opening, just below the water, were stuck
reeds slanting the way of the river's flow, so that the fish, when they
had swum sillily in, sillily couldn't get out again. She showed them the
clay pots and jars and platters, some of them ornamented with black and
red patterns, and the most wonderful things made of flint and different
sorts of stone, beads, and ornaments, and tools and weapons of all sorts
and kinds.

'It is really wonderful,' said Cyril patronizingly, 'when you consider
that it's all eight thousand years ago--'

'I don't understand you,' said the girl.

'It ISN'T eight thousand years ago,' whispered Jane. 'It's NOW--and
that's just what I don't like about it. I say, DO let's get home again
before anything more happens. You can see for yourselves the charm isn't
here.'

'What's in that place in the middle?' asked Anthea, struck by a sudden
thought, and pointing to the fence.

'That's the secret sacred place,' said the girl in a whisper. 'No one
knows what is there. There are many walls, and inside the insidest one
IT is, but no one knows what IT is except the headsmen.'

'I believe YOU know,' said Cyril, looking at her very hard.

'I'll give you this if you'll tell me,' said Anthea taking off a
bead-ring which had already been much admired.

'Yes,' said the girl, catching eagerly at the ring. 'My father is one of
the heads, and I know a water charm to make him talk in his sleep. And
he has spoken. I will tell you. But if they know I have told you they
will kill me. In the insidest inside there is a stone box, and in it
there is the Amulet. None knows whence it came. It came from very far
away.'

'Have you seen it?' asked Anthea.

The girl nodded.

'Is it anything like this?' asked Jane, rashly producing the charm.

The girl's face turned a sickly greenish-white.

'Hide it, hide it,' she whispered. 'You must put it back. If they see it
they will kill us all.