'That will do,' said the children's mother. 'I am not pleased with you, Martha, but you have spoken the truth, and that counts for something.'
When Martha had gone, the children clung round their mother.
'Oh, mummy darling,' cried Anthea, 'it isn't Beale's fault, it isn't really! He's a great dear; he is, truly and honourably, and as honest as the day. Don't let the police take him, mummy! oh, don't, don't, don't!'
It was truly awful. Here was an innocent man accused of robbery through that silly wish of Jane's, and it was absolutely useless to tell the truth. All longed to, but they thought of the straws in the hair and the shrieks of the other frantic maniacs, and they could not do it.
'Is there a cart hereabouts?' asked mother feverishly. 'A trap of any sort? I must drive in to Rochester and tell the police at once.'
All the children sobbed, 'There's a cart at the farm, but, oh, don't go! - don't go! - oh, don't go! - wait till daddy comes home!'
Mother took not the faintest notice. When she had set her mind on a thing she always went straight through with it; she was rather like Anthea in this respect.
'Look here, Cyril,' she said, sticking on her hat with long sharp violet-headed pins, 'I leave you in charge. Stay in the dressing-room. You can pretend to be swimming boats in the bath, or something. Say I gave you leave. But stay there, with the landing door open; I've locked the other. And don't let anyone go into my room. Remember, no one knows the jewels are there except me, and all of you, and the wicked thieves who put them there.
Robert, you stay in the garden and watch the windows. If anyone tries to get in you must run and tell the two farm men that I'll send up to wait in the kitchen. I'll tell them there are dangerous characters about - that's true enough. Now, remember, I trust you both. But I don't think they'll try it till after dark, so you're quite safe. Good-bye, darlings.'
And she locked her bedroom door and went off with the key in her pocket.
The children could not help admiring the dashing and decided way in which she had acted. They thought how useful she would have been in organizing escape from some of the tight places in which they had found themselves of late in consequence of their ill-timed wishes.
'She's a born general,' said Cyril - 'but I don't know what's going to happen to us. Even if the girls were to hunt for that beastly Sammyadd and find it, and get it to take the jewels away again, mother would only think we hadn't looked out properly and let the burglars sneak in and nick them - or else the police will think WE'VE got them - or else that she's been fooling them. Oh, it's a pretty decent average ghastly mess this time, and no mistake!'
He savagely made a paper boat and began to float it in the bath, as he had been told to do.
Robert went into the garden and sat down on the worn yellow grass, with his miserable head between his helpless hands.
Anthea and Jane whispered together in the passage downstairs, where the coconut matting was - with the hole in it that you always caught your foot in if you were not careful. Martha's voice could be heard in the kitchen - grumbling loud and long.
'It's simply quite too dreadfully awful,' said Anthea. 'How do you know all the diamonds are there, too? If they aren't, the police will think mother and father have got them, and that they've only given up some of them for a kind of desperate blind. And they'll be put in prison, and we shall be branded outcasts, the children of felons. And it won't be at all nice for father and mother either,' she added, by a candid afterthought.
'But what can WE do?' asked Jane.
'Nothing - at least we might look for the Psammead again. It's a very, very hot day. He may have come out to warm that whisker of his.'
'He won't give us any more beastly wishes to-day,' said Jane flatly. 'He gets crosser and crosser every time we see him. Ibelieve he hates having to give wishes.'
Anthea had been shaking her head gloomily - now she stopped shaking it so suddenly that it really looked as though she were pricking up her ears.
'What is it?' asked Jane. 'Oh, have you thought of something?'
'Our one chance,' cried Anthea dramatically; 'the last lone-lorn forlorn hope. Come on.'
At a brisk trot she led the way to the sand-pit. Oh, joy! - there was the Psammead, basking in a golden sandy hollow and preening its whiskers happily in the glowing afternoon sun. The moment it saw them it whisked round and began to burrow - it evidently preferred its own company to theirs. But Anthea was too quick for it. She caught it by its furry shoulders gently but firmly, and held it.
'Here - none of that!' said the Psammead. 'Leave go of me, will you?'
But Anthea held him fast.
'Dear kind darling Sammyadd,' she said breathlessly.
'Oh yes - it's all very well,' it said; 'you want another wish, Iexpect. But I can't keep on slaving from morning till night giving people their wishes. I must have SOME time to myself.'
'Do you hate giving wishes?' asked Anthea gently, and her voice trembled with excitement.
