“Tyre, Tyre for ever! It’s Tyre that rules the waves!” the voices of the doomed rose in a triumphant shout. The children scrambled through the arch, and stood trembling and blinking in the Fitzroy Street parlour, and in their ears still sounded the whistle of the wind, and the rattle of the oars, the crash of the ships bow on the rocks, and the last shout of the brave gentlemen-adventurers who went to their deaths singing, for the sake of the city they loved.
“And so we’ve lost the other half of the Amulet again,” said Anthea, when they had told the Psammead all about it.
“Nonsense, pooh!” said the Psammead. “That wasn’t the other half. It was the same half that you’ve got—the one that wasn’t crushed and lost.”
“But how could it be the same?” said Anthea gently.
“Well, not exactly, of course. The one you’ve got is a good many years older, but at any rate it’s not the other one. What did you say when you wished?”
“I forget,” said Jane.
“I don’t,” said the Psammead. “You said, ‘Take us where you are’—and it did, so you see it was the same half.”
“I see,” said Anthea.
“But you mark my words,” the Psammead went on, “you’ll have trouble with that Priest yet.”
“Why, he was quite friendly,” said Anthea.