You can have no idea how dusty and dirty the children were.
Fortunately there was no one to see them but each other. The place
they were in was a little shrine, built on the side of a road that
went winding up through yellow-green fields to the topless tower.
Below them were fields and orchards, all bare boughs and brown
furrows, and little houses and gardens. The shrine was a kind of
tiny chapel with no front wall--just a place for people to stop and
rest in and wish to be good. So the Phoenix told them. There was
an image that had once been brightly coloured, but the rain and
snow had beaten in through the open front of the shrine, and the
poor image was dull and weather-stained. Under it was written: 'St
Jean de Luz. Priez pour nous.' It was a sad little place, very
neglected and lonely, and yet it was nice, Anthea thought, that
poor travellers should come to this little rest-house in the hurry
and worry of their journeyings and be quiet for a few minutes, and
think about being good. The thought of St Jean de Luz--who had, no
doubt, in his time, been very good and kind--made Anthea want more
than ever to do something kind and good.
'Tell us,' she said to the Phoenix, 'what is the good and kind
action the carpet brought us here to do?'
'I think it would be kind to find the owners of the treasure and
tell them about it,' said Cyril.
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