The populace afterwards declared that his blood was not red like that of other men, but black like his skin and his soul.  They had good cause to curse his memory, for his villainy had reduced more than half Memphis to ashes that day, and brought the city to beggary.

He had hired two venial wretches to set fire to the prison while the festival was proceeding, with a view to suffocating Orion in his cell; but the gang were detected and all the prisoners were released in time.  Thus the young man had been able to reach the scene of the ceremonial at the head of his fellow-captives.  The fire, however, had gained the upper hand in the deserted town.  It had spread from house to house along the sun-scorched streets, and next day nothing remained of the city of the Pyramids but the road along the shore, and a few wretched alleys.  The ancient Capital of the Pharaohs was reduced to a village, and the houseless residents moved across to the eastern bank, to people as Moslems the newly-founded town of Fostat, or sought a home on Christian territory.

Among the houses that had escaped was that of Rufinus, and thither the Kadi escorted Orion and Paula.  It was to serve as their prison till the return of Amru, and there they spent delightful days in the society of their friends, and there Thomas was so happy as to clasp his children to his heart once more, and bless them before he died.

A few minutes before the Kadi had reached the scene of the festival two carrier pigeons had arrived, each bearing the Arab governor’s commands that the sacrifice of Paula was at any rate to be stopped, and her life spared till his return.  He also reserved the right of deciding Orion’s fate.

Mary and Rustem had met Amru at Berenice, on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea.  This decaying sea-port was connected with Medina by a pigeon-post, and in reply to his viceroy’s enquiry with reference to the victim about to be offered by the despairing Egyptians to the Nile, Omar had sent a reply which had been immediately forwarded to the Kadi.

The burning of their town had brought new and fearful suffering on the stricken Memphites, and notwithstanding Katharina’s death the Nile still did not rise.  The Kadi therefore once more summoned a meeting of all the inhabitants from both sides of the river, three days after the interrupted marriage-festival.  It was held under the palms by Nesptah’s inn, and there he proclaimed to the multitude, Moslem and Christian, by means of the Arab herald and Egyptian interpreter, what the Khaliff commanded him to declare, namely:  that God, the One, the All-merciful, scorned human sacrifice.  In this firm conviction he, Omar, would beseech Allah the Compassionate, and he sent a letter which was to be cast into the river in his name.

And this letter was addressed: 

“To the River of Egypt.”  And its contents were as follows: 

“If thou, O River, flowest of thyself, then swell not; but if it be God, the One, the Compassionate, that maketh thee to flow, then we entreat the All-merciful that he will bid thee rise!”