LITMIR.BIZ

      Next moment there was a crash. The glass swing doors and all their framework were smashed suddenly and completely. The crowd of angry gentlemen sprang aside when they saw what had done this. But the nastiest of them was not quick enough, and he was roughly pushed out of the way by an enormous stone bull that was floating steadily through the door. It came and stood beside the Queen in the middle of the courtyard.

      It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved stone, bricks, helmets, tools, weapons, fetters, wine-jars, bowls, bottles, vases, jugs, saucers, seals, and the round long things, something like rolling pins with marks on them like the print of little bird-feet, necklaces, collars, rings, armlets, earrings – heaps and heaps and heaps of things, far more than anyone had time to count, or even to see distinctly.

      All the angry gentlemen had abruptly sat down on the Museum steps except the nice one. He stood with his hands in his pockets just as though he was quite used to seeing great stone bulls and all sorts of small Babylonish objects float out into the Museum yard. But he sent a man to close the big iron gates.

      A journalist, who was just leaving the museum, spoke to Robert as he passed.

      ‘Theosophy, I suppose?’ he said. ‘Is she Mrs. Besant?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Robert recklessly.

      The journalist passed through the gates just before they were shut. He rushed off to Fleet Street, and his paper got out a new edition within half an hour.

      ‘MRS BESANT AND THEOSOPHY.

      ‘IMPERTINENT MIRACLE

       AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.’

      People saw it in fat, black letters on the boards carried by the sellers of newspapers. Some few people who had nothing better to do went down to the Museum on the tops of omnibuses. But by the time they got there there was nothing to be seen. For the Babylonian Queen had suddenly seen the closed gates, had felt the threat of them, and had said:

      ‘I wish we were in your house.’

      And, of course, instantly they were.

      The Psammead was furious.

      ‘Look here,’ it said, ‘they’ll come after you, and they’ll find me. There’ll be a National Cage built for me at Westminster, and I shall have to work at politics. Why wouldn’t you leave the things in their places?’

      ‘What a temper you have, haven’t you?’ said the Queen serenely. ‘I wish all the things were back in their places. Will that do for you?’

      The Psammead swelled and shrank and spoke very angrily.

      ‘I can’t refuse to give your wishes,’ it said, ‘but I can Bite. And I will if this goes on. Now then.’

      ‘Ah, don’t,’ whispered Anthea close to its bristling ear; ‘it’s dreadful for us too. Don’t you desert us. Perhaps she’ll wish herself at home again soon.’

      ‘Not she,’ said the Psammead a little less crossly.

      ‘Take me to see your City,’ said the Queen.

      The children looked at each other.

      ‘If we had some money we could take her about in a cab. People wouldn’t notice her so much then. But we haven’t.’

      ‘Sell this,’ said the Queen, taking a ring from her finger.

      ‘They’d only think we’d stolen it,’ said Cyril bitterly, ‘and put us in prison.’

      ‘All roads lead to prison with you, it seems,’ said the Queen.

      ‘The learned gentleman!’ said Anthea, and ran up to him with the ring in her hand.

      ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘will you buy this for a pound?’

      ‘Oh!’ he said in tones of joy and amazement, and took the ring into his hand.

      ‘It’s my very own,’ said Anthea; ‘it was given to me to sell.’

      ‘I’ll lend you a pound,’ said the learned gentleman, ‘with pleasure; and I’ll take care of the ring for you. Who did you say gave it to you?’

      ‘We call her,’ said Anthea carefully, ‘the Queen of Babylon.’

      ‘Is it a game?’ he asked hopefully.

      ‘It’ll be a pretty game if I don’t get the money to pay for cabs for her,’ said Anthea.

      ‘I sometimes think,’ he said slowly, ‘that I am becoming insane, or that—’

      ‘Or that I am; but I’m not, and you’re not, and she’s not.’

      ‘Does she say that she’s the Queen of Babylon?’ he uneasily asked.

      ‘Yes,’ said Anthea recklessly.

      ‘This thought-transference is more far-reaching than I imagined,’ he said. ‘I suppose I have unconsciously influenced her, too. I never thought my Babylonish studies would bear fruit like this. Horrible! There are more things in heaven and earth—’

      ‘Yes,’ said Anthea, ‘heaps more. And the pound is the thing I want more than anything on earth.’

      He ran his fingers through his thin hair.

      ‘This thought-transference!’ he said. ‘It’s undoubtedly a Babylonian ring – or it seems so to me. But perhaps I have hypnotised myself. I will see a doctor the moment I have corrected the last proofs of my book.’

      ‘Yes, do!’ said Anthea, ‘and thank you so very much.’

      She took the sovereign and ran down to the others.

      And now from the window of a four-wheeled cab the Queen of Babylon beheld the wonders of London. Buckingham Palace she thought uninteresting; Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament were little better. But she liked the Tower, and the River, and the ships filled her with wonder and delight.

      ‘But how badly you keep your slaves. How wretched and poor and neglected they seem,’ she said, as the cab rattled along the Mile End Road.

      ‘They aren’t slaves; they’re working-people,’ said Jane.

      ‘Of course they’re working-people. That’s what slaves are. Don’t you tell me. Do you suppose I don’t know a slave’s face when I see it? Why don’t their masters see that they’re better fed and better clothed? Tell me in three words.’

      No one answered. The wage-system of modern England is a little difficult to explain in three words even if you understand it – which the children didn’t.

      ‘You’ll have a revolt of your slaves if you’re not careful,’ said the Queen.

      ‘Oh, no,’ said Cyril; ‘you see they have votes – that makes them safe not to revolt. It makes all the difference. Father told me so.’

      ‘What is this vote?’ asked the Queen. ‘Is it a charm? What do they do with

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