The children found themselves under a white-blossomed, green-leafed fruit-tree, in what seemed to be an orchard of such trees, all white-flowered and green-foliaged. Among the long green grass under their feet grew crocuses and lilies, and strange blue flowers. In the branches overhead thrushes and blackbirds were singing, and the coo of a pigeon came softly to them in the green quietness of the orchard.
'Oh, how perfectly lovely!' cried Anthea.
'Why, it's like home exactly--I mean England--only everything's bluer, and whiter, and greener, and the flowers are bigger.'
The boys owned that it certainly was fairly decent, and even Jane admitted that it was all very pretty.
'I'm certain there's nothing to be frightened of here,' said Anthea.
'I don't know,' said Jane. 'I suppose the fruit-trees go on just the same even when people are killing each other. I didn't half like what the learned gentleman said about the hanging gardens.
I suppose they have gardens on purpose to hang people in. I do hope this isn't one.'
'Of course it isn't,' said Cyril. 'The hanging gardens are just gardens hung up--_I_ think on chains between houses, don't you know, like trays. Come on; let's get somewhere.'
They began to walk through the cool grass. As far as they could see was nothing but trees, and trees and more trees. At the end of their orchard was another one, only separated from theirs by a little stream of clear water. They jumped this, and went on.
Cyril, who was fond of gardening--which meant that he liked to watch the gardener at work--was able to command the respect of the others by telling them the names of a good many trees. There were nut-trees and almond-trees, and apricots, and fig-trees with their big five-fingered leaves. And every now and then the children had to cross another brook.
'It's like between the squares in Through the Looking-glass,' said Anthea.
At last they came to an orchard which was quite different from the other orchards. It had a low building in one corner.
'These are vines,' said Cyril superiorly, 'and I know this is a vineyard. I shouldn't wonder if there was a wine-press inside that place over there.'
At last they got out of the orchards and on to a sort of road, very rough, and not at all like the roads you are used to. It had cypress trees and acacia trees along it, and a sort of hedge of tamarisks, like those you see on the road between Nice and Cannes, or near Littlehampton, if you've only been as far as that.
And now in front of them they could see a great mass of buildings. There were scattered houses of wood and stone here and there among green orchards, and beyond these a great wall that shone red in the early morning sun. The wall was enormously high--more than half the height of St Paul's--and in the wall were set enormous gates that shone like gold as the rising sun beat on them. Each gate had a solid square tower on each side of it that stood out from the wall and rose above it. Beyond the wall were more towers and houses, gleaming with gold and bright colours. Away to the left ran the steel-blue swirl of a great river. And the children could see, through a gap in the trees, that the river flowed out from the town under a great arch in the wall.
'Those feathery things along by the water are palms,' said Cyril instructively.
'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!'
Robert answered this appeal by unexpectedly bursting into 'The British Grenadiers', and to its quick-step they approached the gates of Babylon.
'Some talk of Alexander, And some of Hercules, Of Hector and Lysander, And such great names as these.
But of all the gallant heroes ...'
This brought them to the threshold of the gate, and two men in bright armour suddenly barred their way with crossed spears.
'Who goes there?' they said.
(I think I must have explained to you before how it was that the children were always able to understand the language of any place they might happen to be in, and to be themselves understood. If not, I have no time to explain it now.)
'We come from very far,' said Cyril mechanically. 'From the Empire where the sun never sets, and we want to see your King.'
'If it's quite convenient,' amended Anthea. 'The King (may he live for ever!),' said the gatekeeper, 'is gone to fetch home his fourteenth wife. Where on earth have you come from not to know that?'
'The Queen then,' said Anthea hurriedly, and not taking any notice of the question as to where they had come from.
'The Queen,' said the gatekeeper, '(may she live for ever!) gives audience today three hours after sunrising.'
'But what are we to do till the end of the three hours?' asked Cyril.
The gatekeeper seemed neither to know nor to care. He appeared less interested in them than they could have thought possible.
