It was but a small one; but its appearance in the decayed and deserted city of the Pyramids—­which had grown only lengthwise, like a huge reed-leaf, since its breadth was confined between the Nile and the Libyan Hills—­attracted the gaze of the passers-by, though in former years a Memphite would scarcely have thought it worth while to turn his head to gaze at an interminable pile of wagons loaded with merchandise, an imposing train of vehicles drawn by oxen, the flashing maniples of the imperial cavalry, or an endless procession wending its way down the five miles of high street.

The merchant who, riding a dromedary of the choicest breed, conducted this caravan, was a lean Moslem of mature age, robed in soft silk.  A vast turban covered his small head and cast a shadow over his delicate and venerable features.

The Egyptian guide who rode on a brisk little ass by his side, looked up frequently and with evident pleasure at the merchant’s face—­not in itself a handsome one with its hollow cheeks, meagre beard and large aquiline nose—­for it was lighted up by a pair of bright eyes, full of attractive thoughtfulness and genuine kindness.  But that this fragile-looking man, in whose benevolent countenance grief and infirmities had graven many a furrow, could not only command but compel submission was legible alike in his thin, firmly-closed lips and in the zeal with which his following of truculent and bearded fighting men, armed to the teeth, obeyed his slightest sign.

His Egyptian attendant, the head of the Hermeneutai—­the guild of the Dragomans of that period—­was a swarthy and surly native of Memphis; whenever he accidentally came too close to the fierce-looking riders of the dromedaries he shrunk his shoulders as if he expected a blow or a push, while he poured out question and answer to the Merchant Haschim, the owner of the caravan, without timidity and with the voluble garrulity of his tribe.

“You seem very much at home here in Memphis,” he observed, when the old man had expressed his surprise at the decadence and melancholy change in the city.

“Thirty years ago,” replied the merchant, “my business often brought me hither.  How many houses are now empty and in ruins where formerly only heavy coin could secure admittance!  Ruins on all sides!—­Who has so cruelly mutilated that fine church?  My fellow-believers left every Christian fane untouched—­that I know from our chief Amru himself.”

“It was the principal church of the Melchites, the Emperor’s minions,” cried the guide, as if that were ample explanation of the fact.  The merchant, however, did not take it so.

“Well,” he said, “and what is there so dreadful in their creed?”

“What?” said the Egyptian, and his eye flashed wrathfully.  “What?—­ They dismember the divine person of the Saviour and attribute to it two distinct natures.  And then!—­All the Greeks settled here, and encouraged by the protection of the emperor, treated us, the owners of the land, like slaves, till your nation came to put an end to their oppression.  They drove us by force into their churches, and every true-born Egyptian was punished as a rebel and a leper.  They mocked at us and persecuted us for our faith in the one divine nature of our Lord.”