“Amulets,” the priest explained, “to keep off the evil eye.”
“I don’t think much of your ‘nice Egypt’,” Robert whispered to Jane; “it’s simply not a patch on Babylon.”
“Ah, you wait till you see the palace,” Jane whispered back.
The palace was indeed much more magnificent than anything they had yet seen that day, though it would have made but a poor show beside that of the Babylonian King. They came to it through a great square pillared doorway of sandstone that stood in a high brick wall. The shut doors were of massive cedar, with bronze hinges, and were studded with bronze nails. At the side was a little door and a wicket gate, and through this the priest led the children. He seemed to know a word that made the sentries make way for him.
Inside was a garden, planted with hundreds of different kinds of trees and flowering shrubs, a lake full of fish, with blue lotus flowers at the margin, and ducks swimming about cheerfully, and looking, as Jane said, quite modern.
“The guard-chamber, the store-houses, the queen’s house,” said the priest, pointing them out.
They passed through open courtyards, paved with flat stones, and the priest whispered to a guard at a great inner gate.
“We are fortunate,” he said to the children, “Pharaoh is even now in the Court of Honour. Now, don’t forget to be overcome with respect and admiration. It won’t do any harm if you fall flat on your faces. And whatever you do, don’t speak until you’re spoken to.”
“There used to be that rule in our country,” said Robert, “when my father was a little boy.”
At the outer end of the great hall a crowd of people were arguing with and even shoving the Guards, who seemed to make it a rule not to let anyone through unless they were bribed to do it. The children heard several promises of the utmost richness, and wondered whether they would ever be kept.