“Why, Julius Caesar, you little goat,” replied her kind brother. “Don’t you see that if this is the year fifty-five, Julius Caesar may happen at any moment.”
“I thought you liked Caesar,” said Robert.
“So I do—in the history. But that’s different from being killed by his soldiers.”
“If we saw Caesar we might persuade him not to,” said Anthea.
“You persuade Caesar,” Robert laughed.
The learned gentleman, before anyone could stop him, said, “I only wish we could see Caesar some time.”
And, of course, in just the little time the Psammead took to blow itself out for wish-giving, the five, or six counting the Psammead, found themselves in Caesar’s camp, just outside Caesar’s tent. And they saw Caesar. The Psammead must have taken advantage of the loose wording of the learned gentleman’s wish, for it was not the same time of day as that on which the wish had been uttered among the dried ferns. It was sunset, and the great man sat on a chair outside his tent gazing over the sea towards Britain—everyone knew without being told that it was towards Britain. Two golden eagles on the top of posts stood on each side of the tent, and on the flaps of the tent which was very gorgeous to look at were the letters S.P.Q.R.
The great man turned unchanged on the newcomers the august glance that he had turned on the violet waters of the Channel. Though they had suddenly appeared out of nothing, Caesar never showed by the faintest movement of an eyelid, by the least tightening of that firm mouth, that they were not some long expected embassy. He waved a calm hand towards the sentinels, who sprang weapons in hand towards the newcomers.
“Back!” he said in a voice that thrilled like music. “Since when has Caesar feared children and students?”
To the children he seemed to speak in the only language they knew; but the learned gentleman heard—in rather a strange accent, but quite intelligibly—the lips of Caesar speaking in the Latin tongue, and in that tongue, a little stiffly, he answered—