“Oh, yes; you know everything,” Robert replied. “What’s all that grey-green stuff you see away over there, where it’s all flat and sandy?”
“All right,” said Cyril loftily, “I don’t want to tell you anything. I only thought you’d like to know a palm-tree when you saw it again.”
“Look!” cried Anthea; “they’re opening the gates.”
And indeed the great gates swung back with a brazen clang, and instantly a little crowd of a dozen or more people came out and along the road towards them.
The children, with one accord, crouched behind the tamarisk hedge.
“I don’t like the sound of those gates,” said Jane. “Fancy being inside when they shut. You’d never get out.”
“You’ve got an arch of your own to go out by,” the Psammead put its head out of the basket to remind her. “Don’t behave so like a girl. If I were you I should just march right into the town and ask to see the king.”
There was something at once simple and grand about this idea, and it pleased everyone.
So when the work-people had passed (they were work-people, the children felt sure, because they were dressed so plainly—just one long blue shirt thing—of blue or yellow) the four children marched boldly up to the brazen gate between the towers. The arch above the gate was quite a tunnel, the walls were so thick.
“Courage,” said Cyril. “Step out. It’s no use trying to sneak past. Be bold!”