“Yes,” answered Pheles, “he bade me set sail with half a score brave gentlemen and this crew. You shall go with us, and see many wonders.” He bowed and left them.
“What are we going to do now?” said Robert, when Pheles had caused them to be left along with a breakfast of dried fruits and a sort of hard biscuit.
“Wait till he lands in the Tin Isles,” said Rekh-marā, “then we can get the barbarians to help us. We will attack him by night and tear the sacred Amulet from his accursed heathen neck,” he added, grinding his teeth.
“When shall we get to the Tin Isles?” asked Jane.
“Oh—six months, perhaps, or a year,” said the Egyptian cheerfully.
“A year of this?” cried Jane, and Cyril, who was still feeling far too unwell to care about breakfast, hugged himself miserably and shuddered.
It was Robert who said—
“Look here, we can shorten that year. Jane, out with the Amulet! Wish that we were where the Amulet will be when the ship is twenty miles from the Tin Island. That’ll give us time to mature our plans.”
It was done—the work of a moment—and there they were on the same ship, between grey northern sky and grey northern sea. The sun was setting in a pale yellow line. It was the same ship, but it was changed, and so were the crew. Weather-worn and dirty were the sailors, and their clothes torn and ragged. And the children saw that, of course, though they had skipped the nine months, the ship had had to live through them. Pheles looked thinner, and his face was rugged and anxious.
“Ha!” he cried, “the charm has brought you back! I have prayed to it daily these nine months—and now you are here? Have you no magic that can help?”