The Indians had formed a ring round the children, and now sat on the ground gazing at their captives. There was a threatening silence.

Then slowly, by twos and threes, the Indians who had gone to look for firewood came back, and they came back empty-handed. They had not been able to find a single stick of wood for a fire! No one ever can, as a matter of fact, in that part of Kent.

The children drew a deep breath of relief, but it ended in a moan of terror. For bright knives were being brandished all about them. Next moment each child was seized by an Indian; each closed its eyes and tried not to scream. They waited for the sharp agony of the knife. It did not come. Next moment they were released, and fell in a trembling heap. Their heads did not hurt at all. They only felt strangely cool!

Wild war-whoops rang in their ears. When they ventured to open their eyes they saw four of their foes dancing round them with wild leaps and screams, and each of the four brandished in his hand a scalp of long flowing black hair. They put their hands to their heads--their own scalps were safe! The poor untutored savages had indeed scalped the children. But they had only, so to speak, scalped them of the black calico ringlets!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bright knives were being brandished all about them]

The children fell into each other's arms, sobbing and laughing.

"Their scalps are ours," chanted the chief; "ill-rooted were their ill-fated hairs! They came off in the hands of the victors--without struggle, without resistance, they yielded their scalps to the conquering Rock-dwellers! Oh, how little a thing is a scalp so lightly won!"

"They'll take our real ones in a minute; you see if they don't," said Robert, trying to rub some of the red ochre off his face and hands on to his hair.

"Cheated of our just and fiery revenge are we," the chant went on,--"but there are other torments than the scalping-knife and the flames. Yet is the slow fire the correct thing. O strange unnatural country, wherein a man may find no wood to burn his enemy!--Ah for the boundless forests of my native land, where the great trees for thousands of miles grow but to furnish firewood wherewithal to burn our foes. Ah, would we were but in our native forest once more!"

Suddenly like a flash of lightning, the golden gravel shone all round the four children instead of the dusky figures. For every single Indian had vanished on the instant at their leader's word. The Psammead must have been there all the time. And it had given the Indian chief his wish.

Martha brought home a jug with a pattern of storks and long gra.s.ses on it. Also she brought back all Anthea's money.

"My cousin, she gave me the jug for luck; she said it was an odd one what the basin of had got smashed."

"Oh, Martha, you are a dear!" sighed Anthea, throwing her arms round her.

"Yes," giggled Martha, "you'd better make the most of me while you've got me. I shall give your ma notice directly minute she comes back."

"Oh, Martha, we haven't been so _very_ horrid to you, have we?" asked Anthea, aghast.

"Oh, it isn't that, miss." Martha giggled more than ever. "I'm a-goin'

to be married. It's Beale the gamekeeper. He's been a-proposin' to me off and on ever since you come home from the clergyman's where you got locked up on the church-tower. And to-day I said the word an' made him a happy man."

Anthea put the seven-and-fourpence back in the missionary-box, and pasted paper over the place where the poker had broken it. She was very glad to be able to do this, and she does not know to this day whether breaking open a missionary-box is or is not a hanging matter!

CHAPTER XI (AND LAST)

THE LAST WISH

Of course you, who see above that this is the eleventh (and last) chapter, know very well that the day of which this chapter tells must be the last on which Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane will have a chance of getting anything out of the Psammead, or Sand-fairy.

But the children themselves did not know this. They were full of rosy visions, and, whereas on the other days they had often found it extremely difficult to think of anything really nice to wish for, their brains were now full of the most beautiful and sensible ideas. "This,"

as Jane remarked afterwards, "is always the way." Everyone was up extra early that morning, and these plans were hopefully discussed in the garden before breakfast. The old idea of one hundred pounds in modern florins was still first favourite, but there were others that ran it close--the chief of these being the "pony-each" idea. This had a great advantage. You could wish for a pony each during the morning, ride it all day, have it vanish at sunset, and wish it back again next day.

Which would be an economy of litter and stabling. But at breakfast two things happened. First, there was a letter from mother. Granny was better, and mother and father hoped to be home that very afternoon. A cheer arose. And of course this news at once scattered all the before-breakfast wish-ideas. For everyone saw quite plainly that the wish of the day must be something to please mother and not to please themselves.

"I wonder what she _would_ like," pondered Cyril.

"She'd like us all to be good," said Jane primly.

"Yes--but that's so dull for us," Cyril rejoined; "and besides, I should hope we could be that without sand-fairies to help us. No; it must be something splendid, that we couldn't possibly get without wishing for."

"Look out," said Anthea in a warning voice; "don't forget yesterday.

Remember, we get our wishes now just wherever we happen to be when we say 'I wish.' Don't let's let ourselves in for anything silly--to-day of all days."

"All right," said Cyril. "You needn't talk so much."

Just then Martha came in with a jug full of hot water for the tea-pot--and a face full of importance for the children.

"A blessing we're all alive to eat our breakfast!" she said darkly.

"Why, whatever's happened?" everybody asked.

"Oh, nothing," said Martha, "only it seems n.o.body's safe from being murdered in their beds nowadays."

"Why," said Jane as an agreeable thrill of horror ran down her back and legs and out at her toes, "_has_ anyone been murdered in their beds?"

"Well--not exactly," said Martha; "but they might just as well. There's been burglars over at Peasemarsh Place--Beale's just told me--and they've took every single one of Lady Chittenden's diamonds and jewels and things, and she's a-goin out of one fainting fit into another, with hardly time to say 'Oh, my diamonds!' in between. And Lord Chittenden's away in London."

"Lady Chittenden," said Anthea; "we've seen her. She wears a red-and-white dress, and she has no children of her own and can't abide other folkses'."

"That's her," said Martha. "Well, she's put all her trust in riches, and you see how she's served. They say the diamonds and things was worth thousands of pounds. There was a necklace and a river--whatever that is--and no end of bracelets; and a tarrer and ever so many rings. But there, I mustn't stand talking and all the place to clean down afore your ma comes home."

"I don't see why she should ever have had such lots of diamonds," said Anthea when Martha had flounced off. "She was not at all a nice lady, I thought. And mother hasn't any diamonds, and hardly any jewels--the topaz necklace, and the sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were engaged, and the garnet star, and the little pearl brooch with great-grandpapa's hair in it,--that's about all."

"When I'm grown up I'll buy mother no end of diamonds," said Robert, "if she wants them. I shall make so much money exploring in Africa I shan't know what to do with it."

"Wouldn't it be jolly," said Jane dreamily, "if mother could find all these lovely things, necklaces and rivers of diamonds and tarrers?"

"_Ti--aras_," said Cyril.

"Ti--aras, then,--and rings and everything in her room when she came home. I wish she would"--

The others gazed at her in horror.

"Well, she _will_," said Robert; "you've wished, my good Jane--and our only chance now is to find the Psammead, and if it's in a good temper it _may_ take back the wish and give us another. If not--well--goodness knows what we're in for!--the police of course, and---- Don't cry, silly! We'll stand by you. Father says we need never to be afraid if we don't do anything wrong and always speak the truth."

But Cyril and Anthea exchanged gloomy glances. They remembered how convincing the truth about the Psammead had been once before when told to the police.

It was a day of misfortunes. Of course the Psammead could not be found.

Nor the jewels, though every one of the children searched the mother's room again and again.

"Of course," Robert said, "_we_ couldn't find them. It'll be mother who'll do that. Perhaps she'll think they've been in the house for years and years, and never know they are the stolen ones at all."