He also is watching the upward progress of the lateen-sail; has heard, moreover, the report concerning those on board.  He wonders where is the country from which they come.  Is it the land the storks fly to, of which mother (before the plague carried both her and father to a stranger land still) used to tell such wonderful stories?  Does the world really extend far beyond the valley?  Is the world all valley and river, with now and then some hills, like those away up beyond Memphis?  Are there other cities beside Cairo, and that one which he has heard of but never seen,—­Alexandria?  Wonders why the strangers dress in tight-fitting clothes, with leg-coverings, and without turbans!  Would like to find out about all these things,—­about all things knowable beside these, if any there be.  Would like to go back with the strangers to their country, when they return, and so become the wisest and most powerful of his race; wiser even than those fabulously learned priestly instructors of his, who are so strict with him.  Perhaps he might find all his forefathers there, and his kind mother, who used to tell him stories.

Bah! how the sun blisters down on head and shoulders:  will take a dive and a swim,—­a short swim only, not far from shore; for was not the priest telling of a boy caught by a great crocodile, only, a few days ago, and never seen since?  But there is no crocodile near to-day; and, besides, will not his precious talisman keep him from all harm?

The subtile Nile catches him softly in his cool arms, dandles him, kisses Him, flatters him, wooes him imperceptibly onwards.  Now he is far from shore, and the multitudinous feet of the current are hurrying him away.  The slow-moving boat is much nearer than it was a minute ago,—­seems to be rasping towards him, in spite of the laziness of the impelling breeze.  The boy, as yet unconscious of his peril, now glances shorewards, and sees the banks wheel past.  The crowd of bathers is already far beyond hearing yet, frightened and tired, he wastes his remaining strength in fruitless shouts.  Now the deceitful eddies, once so soft and friendly, whirl him down in ruthless exultation.  He will never reach the shore, good swimmer though he be!

Hark! what plunged from the bank,—­what black thing moves towards him across the water?  The crocodile! coming with tears in his eyes, and a long grin of serried teeth.  Coming!—­the ugly scaly head is always nearer and nearer.  The boy screams; but who should hear him?  He feels whether the talisman be yet round his neck.  He screams again, calling, in half-delirium, upon his dead mother.  Meanwhile the scaly snout is close upon him.

A many-voiced shout, close at hand; a splashing of poles in the water; a rippling of eddies against a boat’s bows!  As the boy drifts by, a blue-eyed, yellow-bearded viking swings himself from the halyard, catches him, pulls him aboard with a jerk and a shout, safe!  The long grin snaps emptily together behind him.  The boy lies on the deck, a vision of people with leg-coverings and other oddities of costume swimming in his eyes; one of them supports his head on his knee, and bends over him a round, good-natured, spectacled face.  Above, a beautiful flag, striped and starred with white, blue, and red, flaps indolently against the mast.—­