“If we’d found the Amulet, Father could be home now,” said Anthea, “and Mother and The Lamb.”
“Let’s go into the future again,” suggested Jane brightly. “Perhaps we could remember if it wasn’t such an awful way off.”
So they did. This time they said, “The future, where the Amulet is, not so far away.”
And they went through the familiar arch into a large, light room with three windows. Facing them was the familiar mummy-case. And at a table by the window sat the learned gentleman. They knew him at once, though his hair was white. He was one of the faces that do not change with age. In his hand was the Amulet—complete and perfect.
He rubbed his other hand across his forehead in the way they were so used to.
“Dreams, dreams!” he said; “old age is full of them!”
“You’ve been in dreams with us before now,” said Robert, “don’t you remember?”
“I do, indeed,” said he. The room had many more books than the Fitzroy Street room, and far more curious and wonderful Assyrian and Egyptian objects. “The most wonderful dreams I ever had had you in them.”
“Where,” asked Cyril, “did you get that thing in your hand?”
“If you weren’t just a dream,” he answered, smiling, you’d remember that you gave it to me.”