While the skipper was bargaining with the master of the dye works the Egyptian came close to the children, and said, suddenly and softly—
“Trust me.”
“I wish we could,” said Anthea.
“You feel,” said the Egyptian, “that I want your Amulet. That makes you distrust me.”
“Yes,” said Cyril bluntly.
“But you also, you want my Amulet, and I am trusting you.”
“There’s something in that,” said Robert.
“We have the two halves of the Amulet,” said the Priest, “but not yet the pin that joined them. Our only chance of getting that is to remain together. Once part these two halves and they may never be found in the same time and place. Be wise. Our interests are the same.”
Before anyone could say more the skipper came back, and with him the dye-master. His hair and beard were curled like the men’s in Babylon, and he was dressed like the skipper, but with added grandeur of gold and embroidery. He had necklaces of beads and silver, and a glass amulet with a man’s face, very like his own, set between two bull’s heads, as well as gold and silver bracelets and armlets. He looked keenly at the children. Then he said—
“My brother Pheles has just come back from Tarshish. He’s at his garden house—unless he’s hunting wild boar in the marshes. He gets frightfully bored on shore.”