 Chapter 14 of the Story of the Amulet This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Porick The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbitt Chapter 14 The Heart's Desire If I only had time, I could tell you lots of things. For instance, how, in spite of the advice of the Samyad, the four children did, one very wet day, go through their amulet arch into the golden desert, and there find the great temple of Baalbeck, and meet with the phoenix, whom they never thought to see again, and how the phoenix did not remember them at all, until it went into a sort of prophetic trance, if that can be called remembering. But alas! I haven't time! So I must leave all that out, though it was a wonderfully thrilling adventure. I must leave out, too, all about the visit of the children to the hippodrome with the Samyad in its travelling-bag, and about how the wishes of the people round about them were granted so suddenly and surprisingly that at last the Samyad had to be taken hurriedly home by Antia, who consequently missed half the performance. Then there was the time when, nurse having gone to tea with a friend out of a long way, they were playing devil in the dark, and in the midst of that most creepy pastime, the postman's knock frightened Jane nearly out of her life. She took in the letters, however, and put them in the back of the hat-stand drawer so that they should be safe. And safe they were, for she never thought of them again for weeks and weeks. One really good thing happened when they took the Samyad to a magic lantern show and lecture at the boys' school at Camden Town. Their lecture was all about our soldiers in South Africa, and the lecture ended up saying, and I hope every boy in this room has, in his heart, the seeds of courage and heroism and self-sacrifice, and I wish that every one of you may grow up to be noble and brave and unselfish, worthy citizens of this great empire for whom our soldiers have freely given their lives. And, of course, this came true, which was a distinct score for Camden Town. As Anthea said, it was unlucky that the lecturer said boys, because now she and Jane would have to be noble and unselfish, if at all, without any outside help. But Jane said, I dare say we are already because of our beautiful natures. It's only boys that have to be made brave by magic, which nearly led to a first-class row. And I dare say you would like to know all about the affair of the fishing rod and the fish hooks and the cook next door, which was amusing from some points of view, though not perhaps the cooks. But there really is no time even for that. The only thing that there's time to tell about is the adventure of masculine and cooks and the unexpected apparition, which is also the beginning of the end. It was nurse who broke into the gloomy music of the autumn rain and the windowpanes by suggesting a visit to the Egyptian Hall, England's home of mystery. Though they had good, but private reasons to know that their own particular personal mystery was of a very different brand, the four all brightened at the idea. All children, as well as a good many grown-ups, love conjuring. It's in Piccadilly, said old nurse, carefully counting out the proper number of shillings into Cyril's hand. Not so very far down on the left from the circus. There's big pillars outside. Something like Carter's seed-pace and all-burn, as used to be Diane Martin's blacking when I was a gal, and something like Euston's station, only not so big. Yes, I know, said everybody. So they started. But though they walked along the left-hand side of Piccadilly, they saw no pillard building that was at all like Carter's seed-warehouse or Euston's station or England's home of mystery as they remembered it. At last they stopped a hurried lady and asked her the way to masculine and cooks. I don't know, I'm sure, she said, pushing past them. I always shop at the stores. Which just shows, as Jane said, how ignorant grown-up people are. It was a policeman who at last explained to them that England's mysteries are now appropriately enough and acted at St George's Hall. So they tramped to Langham Place and missed the first two items in the programme. But they were in time for the most wonderful magic appearances and disappearances which they could hardly believe, even with all their knowledge of a larger magic, was not really magic after all. If only the Babylonians could have seen this conjuring, whispered Cyril. It takes the shine out of their old conjurer, doesn't it? said Antia and several other members of the audience. Now there was a vacant seat next to Robert and it was when all eyes were fixed on the stage where Mr. Devant was pouring out glasses of all sorts of different things to drink out of one kettle with one spout and the audience were delightedly tasting them that Robert felt someone in that vacant seat. He did not feel someone sit down in it. It was just that one moment there was no one sitting there and the next moment suddenly there was someone. Robert turned. The someone who had suddenly filled that empty place was Rech Mare, the priest of Amen. Though the eyes of the audience were fixed on Mr. David Devant Mr. David Devant's eyes were fixed on the audience and it happened that his eyes were more particularly fixed on that empty chair so that he saw quite plainly the sudden appearance from nowhere of the Egyptian priest. A jolly good trick, he said to himself and worked under my own eyes in my own hall. I'll find out how that's done. He had never seen a trick that he could not do himself if he tried. By this time a good many eyes in the audience had turned on the clean-shaven curiously dressed figure of the Egyptian priest. Ladies and gentlemen, said Mr. Devant, rising to the occasion this is a trick I have never before performed. The empty seat, third from the end, second row gallery you will now find occupied by an ancient Egyptian warrant-eyed genuine. How little he knew how true his words were! And now all eyes were turned on the priest and the children and the whole audience after a moment's breathless surprise shouted applause. Only the lady on the other side of Rech Mare drew back a little. She knew no one had passed her. And as she said later, over tea and cold tongue, it was that sudden it made her flesh creep. Rech Mare seemed very much annoyed at the notice he was exciting. Come out of this crowd! he whispered to Robert. I must talk with you apart. Oh, no! Jane whispered. I did so want to see the mascot moth and the ventriloquist. How did you get here? was Robert's return whisper. How did you get to Egypt and to Tyre? retorted Rech Mare. Come, let us leave this crowd. There's no help for it, I suppose. Robert shrugged angrily, but they all got up. Confederates! said the man in the row behind. Now they go round to the back and take part in the next scene. I wish we did! said Robert. Confederate yourself! said Cyril. And so they got away, the audience applauding to the last. In the vestibule of St. George's Hall they disguised Rech Mare as well as they could. But even with Robert's hat and Cyril's Inverness cape he was too striking a figure for foot-exercise in the London streets. It had to be a cab. And it took the last leased money of all of them. They stopped the cab a few doors from home and then the girls went in and engaged all nurses' attention by an account of the conjuring fervent entreaty for dripping toast with their tea, leaving the front door open so that while nurses talking to them the boys could quietly creep in with Rech Mare and smuggle him, unseen, up the stairs into the bedroom. When the girls came up they found the Egyptian priest sitting on the side of Cyril's bed, his hands on his knees, looking like a statue of the king. Come on! said Cyril impatiently. He won't begin till we're all here, and shut the door, can't you? When the door was shut the Egyptian said, My interests and yours are won. Very interesting, said Cyril, and it'll be a jolly sight more interesting if you'll keep following us about in a decent country, but no more clothes on than that. Peace! said the priest. What is this country, and what is this time? The country's England, said Antia, and the time's about six thousand years later than your time. The amulet then, said the priest, deeply thoughtful, gives the power to move to and fro in time as well as in space. That's about it, said Cyril gruffly. Look here, it'll be tea-timed directly. What are we to do with you? You have one half of the amulet, I the other, said Rech Mare, all that is now needed is the pin to join them. Don't you think it, said Robert? The half you've got is the same half as the one we've got. But the same thing cannot be in the same place and the same time, and yet be not one but twain, said the priest. See, here is my half. He laid it on the Marcella counterpane. Where is yours? Jane, watching the eyes of the others, unfastened the string of the amulet and laid it on the bed, but too far off for the priest to seize it, even if he had been so dishonourable. Cyril and Robert stood beside him, ready to spring on him if one of his hands had moved whatever so little towards the magic treasure that was theirs, but his hands did not move. Only his eyes opened very wide, and so did everyone else's, for the amulet the priest had now quivered and shook, and then, as steel is drawn to the magnet, it was drawn across the white counterpane, nearer and nearer to the amulet, warm from the neck of Jane, and then as one drop of water mingles but another on a rain-wrinkled window-pane, as one bead of Quicksilver is drawn into another bead, rec-mar as amulet slipped into the other one, and behold, there was no more but the one amulet. Black magic! Crad rec-mar, 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 bed-post. 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 hours. 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, Crad rec-mar and fury, before I blast you at the seven secret curses of Amanorah! 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'll make a row we can just open that window and call the police at 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 O'Recmaris Sulkily. But reason could not be spoken to him till a whispered council had been held in the far corner by the wash-hand stand and the towel-horse. A council 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, by the sacred, secret name that is written under the altar of Amenura, I will deal fairly by you. Will you, too, take the oath of honourable partnership? No, said Anthea on the instant and added rather rashly. We don't swear in England, except in police courts where the guards are, you know, and you don't want to go there. But when we say we'll do a thing, it's the same as an oath to us, we do it. You trust us and we'll trust you. She began to unbind his legs, and the boys hastened to untie his arms. When he was free he stood up, stretched his arms, and laughed. Now, he said, I am stronger than you, and my oath is void. I have sworn by nothing, and my oath is nothing likewise. For there is no secret, a sacred name under the altar of Amenura. Oh, yes, there is! said a voice from under the bed. Everyone started, like a mire, most of all. Cyril stooped and pulled out the bath of sand where the Samyad slept. You don't know everything, though you are a divine father of the temple of Amen. Said the Samyad, shaking itself to the sand, felt tinkling at the bath-edge. There is a secret, sacred name beneath the altar of Amenura. Shall I call on that name? No, no! cried the priest in terror. No, said Jane, too. Don't let us have any calling names! Besides, said Orakimara, who had turned very white indeed under his natural brownedness, I was only going to say that, though there isn't any name under, There is! said the Samyad threateningly. Well, even if there wasn't, I will be bound by the wordless oath of your strangely upright land, and having said that, I will be your friend. I will be it. Then that's all right! said the Samyad. And there's the tea-bow. What are you going to do with your distinguished partner? He can't go down to tea like that, you know. You see, we can't do anything till the third of December, said Anthea. That's when we are to find the whole charm. What can we do with Orakimara till then? Box-room, said Sirle briefly, and smuggle up his meals. It will be rather fun. Like a fleeing cavalier concealed from exasperated roundheads! said Robert. Yes! So Orakimara was taken up to the box-room, and made as comfortable as possible in a snug nook between an old nursery-fender and the wreck of a big fore-poster. They gave him a big rag-bag to sit on, and an old, moth-eaten fur-coat off the nail in the door to keep him warm. And when they had had their own tea, they took him some. He did not like the tea at all, but he liked the bread and butter and cake that went with it. They took it in turns to sit with him during the evening, and left him fairly happy and quite settled for the night. But when they went up in the morning with a kipper, a quarter of which each of them had gone without a breakfast, Orakimara was gone! There was the cozy corner with the rag-bag, and the moth-eaten fur-coat, but the cozy corner was empty. Good riddance was naturally the first delight I had thought in each mind. The second was less pleasing, because everyone at once remembered that since his amulet had been swallowed up by theirs, which hung once more round the neck of Jane, he could have no possible means of returning to his Egyptian past. Therefore he must still be in England, and probably somewhere quite near them, plotting mischief. The attic was searched to prevent mistakes, but quite vainly. The best thing we can do, said Cyril, is to go through the half-amulet straight away, get the whole amulet, and come back. I don't know, and he hesitated. Would that be quite fair? Perhaps he isn't really a base-deceiver. Perhaps something's happened to him. Happened, said Cyril, not did it. Besides, what could happen? I don't know, said Anthea. Perhaps burglars came in the night, had accidentally killed him, and took away the—all that was mortal of him, you know, to avoid discovery. Or perhaps, said Cyril, they hid the—all that was mortal in one of those big trunks in the box-room. Shall we go back and look? He added grimly. No, no! Jane shuddered. Let's go and tell the Samyad and see what it says. No, said Anthea. Let's ask the learned gentleman. If anything has happened to Rek Mara, a gentleman's advice would be more useful than a Samyad's. And the learned gentleman will only think it's a dream, like he always does. They tapped at the door, and on the— Come in! entered. The learned gentleman was sitting in front of his untasted breakfast. Opposite him, in the easy chair, sat Rek Mara. Hush! said the learned gentleman very earnestly. Please, hush! Or the dream will go. I am learning what have I not learned in the last hour. In the grey dawn, said the priest, I left my hiding place and finding myself among these treasures from my own country. I remained. I feel more at home here somehow. Oh, of course I know it is a dream, said the learned gentleman feverishly. But, oh ye gods, what a dream by Jove! Call not upon the gods, said the priest, lest ye raise greater ones than ye can control. Already, he explained to the children, he and I are as brothers, and as welfare is as dear to me as my own. He has told me, the learned gentleman began, but Robert interrupted. This was no moment for manners. Have you told him, he asked the priest, all about the amulet? No, said Rek Mara. Then tell him now, he is very learned, perhaps he can tell us what to do. Rek Mara hesitated, then told, and, oddly enough, none of the children ever could remember afterwards what it was that he did tell. Perhaps he used some magic to prevent them remembering. When he had done, the learned gentleman was silent, kneeling his elbow on the table and his head on his hand. Dear Jimmy, said Anthea gently, don't worry about it, we are sure to find it today somehow. Yes, said Rek Mara, and perhaps with it death. It's to bring us our heart's desire, said Robert. Who knows, said the priest, what things undreamed of an infinitely desirable lie beyond the dark gates. Who don't, said Jane, almost whimpering. The learned gentleman raised his head suddenly. Why not, he suggested, go back into the past, at a moment when the amulet is unwatched, wish to be with it, and then it shall be under your hand. It was the simplest thing in the world, and yet none of them had ever thought of it. Come! cried Rek Mara, leaping up, come now! May, may I come? the learned gentleman timidly asked. It's only a dream, you know. Come and welcome, O brother! Rek Mara was beginning, but Cyril and Robert with one voice cried, No! You weren't with us in Atlantis, Robert added, or you'd know better than to let him come. Dear Jimmy, asked Anthea, please don't ask to come. We'll go and be back again before you've time to know that we're gone. And he too. We must keep together, said Rek Mara. Since there is but one perfect amulet which I and these children have equal claims, Jane held up the amulet. Rek Mara went first, and they all passed through the great arch into which the amulet grew at the name of power. The learned gentleman saw through the arch a darkness lighted by smoky gleams. He rubbed his eyes, and he only rubbed them for ten seconds. The children and the priests were in a small dark chamber. A square doorway of massive stone let in gleams of shifting light, and the sound of many voices chanting a slow, strange hymn. They stood listening. Now and then the chant quickened and the light grew brighter as though fuel had been thrown on a fire. Where are we? whispered Anthea. And when? whispered Robert. This is some shrine near the beginnings of belief, said the Egyptian shivering. Take the amulet and come away. It is cold here in the morning of the world. And then Jane felt that her hand was on a slab or table of stone, and under her hand something that felt like the charm that had so long hung round her neck, only it was thicker, twice as thick. It's here! She said, I've got it! And she hardly knew the sound of her own voice. Come away! repeated Rekmarah. I wish we could see more of this temple, said Robert resistingly. Come away! the priest urged. There is death all about and strong magic. Listen! The chanting voices seemed to have grown louder and fiercer and light stronger. They are coming! cried Rekmarah. Quick! Quick! The amulet! Jane held it up. What a long time you've been rubbing your eyes, said Anthea. Don't you see we've got back? The learned gentleman merely stared at her. Miss Anthea! Miss Jane! It was nurse's voice, very much higher and squeaky and more exalted than usual. Oh, bother! said everyone. Cyril adding, You just go on with the dream for a sec, Mr Jimmy. We'll be back directly. Nurse will come up if we don't. She wouldn't think Rekmarah was a dream. Then they went down. Nurse was in the hall, an orange envelope in one hand and a pink paper in the other. Your pan-mars come home. Reach London 1115. Prepare rooms as directed in letter and signed in their two names. Ho! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! shouted the boys and Jane. But Anthea could not shout. She was nearer crying. Oh! she said almost in a whisper. Then it was true and we have got her heart's desire. But I don't understand about the letter. Nurse was saying, I haven't had no letter. Oh! said Jane in a queer voice. I wonder whether it was one of those. They came that night, you know, when we were playing Devon in the Dark and I put them in the hat-stand drawer behind the clothes-brushes and she pulled out the drawer as she spoke and here they are. There was a letter for nurse and one for the children. The letters told how father had done being a war correspondent and was coming home and how mother and the lamb were going to meet him in Italy and all come home together and how the lamb and mother were quite well and how a telegram would be sent to tell the day in the hour of their homecoming. Mercy me! said old nurse. I declare if it's not too bad of you, Miss Jane, I shall have a night to do being straight for your pa and ma. Oh! never mind, nurse! said Jane hugging her. Isn't it just too lovely for anything? We'll come and help you! said Cyril. This is just something upstairs we've got to settle up and then we'll all come and help you. Get along with you! said old nurse, but she laughed jollyly. Nice help you'd be! I know you! And it's ten o'clock now. There was, in fact, something upstairs they had to settle. Quite a considerable something, too. And it took much longer than expected. A hasty rush into the boys' room secured the Samyad. Very sandy and very cross. It doesn't matter how cross and sandy it is, though! said Antia. It ought to be there at the final council. It could give the learning a chance to learn it could give the learned gentlemen fits I expect, said Robert, when he sees it. But it didn't. The dream is growing more and more wonderful! exclaimed when the Samyad had been explained to him by Rekmara. I have dreamed this beast before! Now, said Robert, Jane has got the half-amulet and I've got the hole! Show up, Jane! Jane untied the string and laid her half-amulet on the table littered with dusty papers and the clay cylinders marked all over with little marks like the little prince of birds' little feet. Robert laid down the hole-amulet and Antia gently restrained the eager hand of the learned gentlemen as it reached out yearningly towards the perfect specimen. And then just as before on the Marcella quilt so now on the dusty litter of papers and curiosities the half-amulet quivered and shook and then, as steel is drawn to a magnet, it was drawn across the dusty manuscripts near and near to the perfect amulet, warm from the pocket of Robert. And then, as one drop of water mingled with another canes of the window were wrinkled with rain as one bead of mercury is drawn into another bead the half-amulet that was the children's and was also rec-maras slipped into the hole-amulet and, behold, there was only one, the perfect and ultimate charm. And that's all right! said the Samyed, breaking a breathless silence. Yes, and, Anthea, and we've got our heart's desire. Father and mother and the lamb are coming home to-day. But what about me? said the rec-mara. What is your heart's desire? Anthea asked. Great and deep learning! said the priest, but out of moments' hesitation a learning greater in deeper than that of any man of my land and my time. But learning too great is useless. If I go back to my own land and my own age, who will believe my tales of what I have seen in the future? Let me stay here, be the great knower of all that has been, in that our time, so living to me, so old to you, about which your learned men speculate unceasingly, and often he tells me vainly, if I were you, said the Samyed, I should ask the amulet about that. It's a dangerous thing, trying to live in a time that's not your own. You can't breathe an air that's thousands of centuries ahead of your lungs, without feeling the effects of it sooner or later. Prepare the mystic circle and consult the amulet. Oh, what a dream! cried the learned gentlemen. Dear children, if you love me and I think you do in dreams and out of them, prepare the mystic circle and consult the amulet. They did. As once before, one had shone an august splendour. They crouched in a circle on the floor. Now the air outside was thick and yellow with the fog that by some strange decree always attends a cattle show week, and in the street coasters were shouting Ur Heckel Sech Jane said the name of power, and instantly the light went out, and all the sounds went out too, so that there was a silence and a darkness both deeper than any darkness or silence that you have ever even dreamed of imagining. It was like being deaf or blind, only darker and quieter even than that. Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a voice. The light was too faint to see anything by, and the voice was too small for you to hear what it said. But the light and the voice grew, and the light was the light that no man may look on and live, and the voice was the sweetest and most terrible voice in the world. The children cast down their eyes, and so did everyone. I speak, said the voice. What is it that you would hear? There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak. What are we to do about Rekamara? said Robert suddenly and abruptly. Shall he go back to the amulet to his own time, or? No one can pass through the amulet now. So the beautiful terrible voice to any land or any time only when it was imperfect could such things be. But men may pass through the perfect charm to the perfect union which is not of time or space. Would you be so very kind? said Anthea tremulously as to speak so that we can understand you. The Sammy had said something about Rekamara not being able to live here and if he can't get back she stopped. Her heart was beating desperately in her throat it seemed. Nobody can continue to live in a land and in a time not appointed to the voice of glorious sweetness. But a soul may live if in that other time and land there be found a soul so akin to it as to offer it refuge in the body of that land and time that thus they too may be one soul in one body. The children exchanged discouraged glances but the eyes of Rekamara and the learned gentlemen met and were kind to each other and promised each other many things secret and sacred very beautiful. Anthea saw the look oh but she said without it all meaning to say it dear Jimmy's soul isn't at all like Rekamara's I'm certain it isn't I don't want to be rude but it isn't you know dear Jimmy's soul is as good as gold and nothing that is not good you can pass beneath the double arch of my perfect amulet say the voice if both are willing say the word of power and let the two souls become one forever and ever more shall I ask Jane yes the voices were those of the Egyptian priest and the learned gentlemen and the voices were eager alive thrilled with hope and the desire of great things so Jane took the amulet from Robert and held it up between the two men and said for the last time the word of power Ur Hekkao Setsha the perfect amulet grew into a double arch the two arches leaned to each other making a great A A stands for Amen whispered Jane what he was a priest of Hush Breedadantia the great double arch glowed in and through the green light that had been there since the name of power had first been spoken it glowed at a light more bright yet more soft than the other light a glory and splendour in sweetness unspeakable come cried Rekmara holding out his hands come cried the learned gentlemen and he also held out his hands each moved forward under the glowing glorious arch of the perfect amulet then Rekmara quavered and shook and as steel is drawn to a magnet he was drawn under the arch of magic near and nearer to the learned gentlemen and as one drop of water mingled with another when the window glass is rain wrinkled and as one quicksilver bead is drawn to another quicksilver bead Rekmara divine father of the temple of Amun Ra was drawn into slipped into disappeared into and was one with Jimmy the good the beloved the learned gentlemen and suddenly it was good daylight and the December sun shone the fog has passed away like a dream the amulet was there little and complete in Jane's hand and there were the other children and the Samyad and the learned gentlemen but Rekmara or the body of Rekmara was not there anymore as for his soul oh the horrid thing cried Robert and put his foot on a centipede as long as your finger wriggled and squirmed at the learned gentlemen's feet that, said the Samyad was the evil in the soul of Rekmara there was a deep silence then Rekmara's him now said Jane at last all that was good in Rekmara said the Samyad he thought to have his heart's desire too said Antien a sort of stubborn gentleness his heart's desire said the Samyad is the perfect amulet you hold in your hand yes and has been ever since he first saw the broken half of it we've got ours said Antien softly yes, said the Samyad its voice was crosser than they had ever heard it your parents are coming home and what's to become of me I shall be found out and made a show of and degraded in every possible way I know they will make me go into Parliament hateful place all mud and no sand that beautiful Balbek temple in the desert plenty of good sand there and no politics I wish I were there safe in the past that I do I wish you were said the learned gentleman absently yet as polite as ever the Samyad swelled itself up turned its long snail's eye and one last lingering look at Antien a loving look she always said and thought and vanished well said Antien after a silence I suppose it's happy the only thing it ever did care for was sand my dear children said the learned gentleman I must have fallen asleep I've had the most extraordinary dream I hope it was a nice one said Cyril Recourtesy yes I feel a new man after it absolutely a new man there was a ring at the front doorbell the opening of a door voices it's them cried Robert and a thrill ran through four hearts here cried Antien snatching the amulet from Jane and pressing it into the hand of the learned gentleman here it's yours your very own a present from us because you're Rekmar as well I mean because you're such a dear she hugged him briefly but fervently and the four swept down the stairs to the hall where a cab man was bringing in boxes and where heavily disguised in travelling cloaks and wraps was their heart's desire threefold mother father and the lamb bless me said the learned gentleman left alone bless me what a treasure the dear children it must be their affection that has given me these luminous apricots I seem to see so many things now things I never saw before the dear children the dear dear children end of the story of the amulet by E. Naspet recording by Porick