"Where are we?" Cyril asked the Psammead.
"In Britain," said the Psammead.
"But when?" asked Anthea anxiously.
"About the year fifty-five before the year you reckon time from," said the Psammead crossly. "Is there anything else you want to know?" it added, sticking its head out of the bag formed by Anthea"s blue linen frock, and turning its snail"s eyes to right and left. "I"ve been here before--it"s very little changed." "Yes, but why here?" asked Anthea.
"Your inconsiderate friend," the Psammead replied, "wished to find some home where they would be glad to have that unattractive and immature female human being whom you have picked up--gracious knows how. In Megatherium days properly brought-up children didn"t talk to shabby strangers in parks. Your thoughtless friend wanted a place where someone would be glad to have this undesirable stranger. And now here you are!"
"I see we are," said Anthea patiently, looking round on the tall gloom of the forest. "But why HERE? Why NOW?"
"You don"t suppose anyone would want a child like that in YOUR times--in YOUR towns?" said the Psammead in irritated tones. "You"ve got your country into such a mess that there"s no room for half your children--and no one to want them."
"That"s not our doing, you know," said Anthea gently.
"And bringing me here without any waterproof or anything," said the Psammead still more crossly, "when everyone knows how damp and foggy Ancient Britain was."
"Here, take my coat," said Robert, taking it off. Anthea spread the coat on the ground and, putting the Psammead on it, folded it round so that only the eyes and furry ears showed.
"There," she said comfortingly. "Now if it does begin to look like rain, I can cover you up in a minute. Now what are we to do?"
The others who had stopped holding hands crowded round to hear the answer to this question. Imogen whispered in an awed tone--
"Can"t the organ monkey talk neither! I thought it was only parrots!"
"Do?" replied the Psammead. "I don"t care what you do!" And it drew head and ears into the tweed covering of Robert"s coat.
The others looked at each other.
"It"s only a dream," said the learned gentleman hopefully; "something is sure to happen if we can prevent ourselves from waking up."
And sure enough, something did.
The brooding silence of the dark forest was broken by the laughter of children and the sound of voices.
"Let"s go and see," said Cyril.
"It"s only a dream," said the learned gentleman to Jane, who hung back; "if you don"t go with the tide of a dream--if you resist--you wake up, you know."
There was a sort of break in the undergrowth that was like a silly person"s idea of a path. They went along this in Indian file, the learned gentleman leading.
Quite soon they came to a large clearing in the forest. There were a number of houses--huts perhaps you would have called them--with a sort of mud and wood fence.
"It"s like the old Egyptian town," whispered Anthea.
And it was, rather.
Some children, with no clothes on at all, were playing what looked like Ring-o"-Roses or Mulberry Bush. That is to say, they were dancing round in a ring, holding hands. On a gra.s.sy bank several women, dressed in blue and white robes and tunics of beast-skins sat watching the playing children.
The children from Fitzroy Street stood on the fringe of the forest looking at the games. One woman with long, fair braided hair sat a little apart from the others, and there was a look in her eyes as she followed the play of the children that made Anthea feel sad and sorry.
"None of those little girls is her own little girl," thought Anthea.
The little black-clad London child pulled at Anthea"s sleeve.
"Look," she said, "that one there--she"s precious like mother; mother"s "air was somethink lovely, when she "ad time to comb it out. Mother wouldn"t never a-beat me if she"d lived "ere--I don"t suppose there"s e"er a public nearer than Epping, do you, Miss?"
In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the forest.
The sad-eyed woman saw her. She stood up, her thin face lighted up with a radiance like sunrise, her long, lean arms stretched towards the London child.
"Imogen!" she cried--at least the word was more like that than any other word--"Imogen!"
There was a moment of great silence; the naked children paused in their play, the women on the bank stared anxiously.
"Oh, it IS mother--it IS!" cried Imogen-from-London, and rushed across the cleared s.p.a.ce. She and her mother clung together--so closely, so strongly that they stood an instant like a statue carved in stone.
Then the women crowded round. "It IS my Imogen!" cried the woman.
"Oh it is! And she wasn"t eaten by wolves. She"s come back to me. Tell me, my darling, how did you escape? Where have you been? Who has fed and clothed you?"
"I don"t know nothink," said Imogen.
"Poor child!" whispered the women who crowded round, "the terror of the wolves has turned her brain."
"But you know ME?" said the fair-haired woman.
And Imogen, clinging with black-clothed arms to the bare neck, answered--
"Oh, yes, mother, I know YOU right "nough."
"What is it? What do they say?" the learned gentleman asked anxiously.
"You wished to come where someone wanted the child," said the Psammead.
"The child says this is her mother."
"And the mother?"
"You can see," said the Psammead.
"But is she really? Her child, I mean?"
"Who knows?" said the Psammead; "but each one fills the empty place in the other"s heart. It is enough."
"Oh," said the learned gentleman, "this is a good dream. I wish the child might stay in the dream."
The Psammead blew itself out and granted the wish. So Imogen"s future was a.s.sured. She had found someone to want her.
"If only all the children that no one wants," began the learned gentleman--but the woman interrupted. She came towards them.