The light shone far across the country; even he whose splendid inheritance was feeding the flames perceived, between midnight and dawn, a glow on the distant western horizon which he was unable to account for.

He had been riding towards it for about half an hour when the caravan halted at the last station but one, on the high road between Kolzum and Babylon.

     [Suez, and the Greek citadel near which Amru founded Fostat and
     Cairo subsequently grew up.]

A considerable troop of horse soldiers dismounted at the same time, but Orion had not summoned these to protect him; on the contrary, he was in their charge and they were taking him, a prisoner, to Fostat.  He had quitted the chariot in which he had set out and had been made to mount a dromedary; two horsemen armed to the teeth rode constantly at his side.  His fellow-travellers were allowed to remain in their chariot.

At the inn which they had now reached Justinus got out and desired his companion, a pale-faced man who sat sunk into a heap, to do the same; but with a weary shake of the head he declined to move.

“Are you in pain, Narses?” asked Justinus affectionately, and Narses briefly replied in a husky voice:  “All over,” and settled himself against the cushion at the back of the chariot.  He even refused the refreshments brought out to him by the Senator’s servant and interpreter.  He seemed sunk in apathy and to crave nothing but peace.

This was the senator’s nephew.

With Orion’s help, and armed with letters of protection and recommendation from Amru, the senator had gained his purpose.  He had ransomed Narses, but not before the wretched man had toiled for some time as a prisoner, first at the canal on the line of the old one constructed by the Pharaohs, which was being restored under the Khaliff Omar, to secure the speediest way of transporting grain from Egypt to Arabia and afterwards in the rock-bound harbor of Aila.  On the burning shores of the Red Sea, under the fearful sun of those latitudes, Narses was condemned to drag blocks of stone; many days had elapsed before his uncle could trace him—­and in what a state did Justinus find him at last!

A week before he could reach him, the ex-officer of cavalry had laid himself down in the wretched sheds for the sick provided for the laborers; his back still bore the scars of the blows by which the overseer had spurred the waning strength of his exhausted and suffering victim.  The fine young soldier was a wreck, broken alike in heart and body and sunk in melancholy.  Justinus had hoped to take him home jubilant to Martina, and he had only this ruin to show her, doomed to the grave.

The senator was glad, nevertheless, to have saved this much at any rate.  The sight of the sufferer touched him deeply, and the less Narses would take or give, the more thankful was Justinus when he gave the faintest sign of reviving interest.