While she was wringing her hands, in a state verging on despair, the man who had ruined the happiness, the peace, and the fortunes of so many of his fellow-creatures was cantering through the streets of Memphis, mounted on the finest horse in Orion’s stable, and firmly determined to make his defiant prisoner feel his power.  When he reached the great market-place in the quarter known as Ta-anch he was forced to bring his steed to a quieter pace, for in front of the Curia—­the senatehouse—­an immense gathering of people had collected.  The Vekeel forced his way through them with cruel indifference.  He knew what they wanted and paid no heed to them.  The hapless crowd had for some time past met here daily, demanding from the authorities some succor in their fearful need.  Processions and pilgrimages had had no result yesterday, so to-day they besieged the Curia.  But could the senate make the Nile rise, or stay the pestilence, or prevent the dates dropping from the palm-trees?  Could they help, when Heaven denied its aid?

These were the questions which the authorities had already put at least ten times to the shrieking multitude from the balcony of the town hall, and each time the crowd had yelled in reply:  “Yes—­yes.  You must!—­it is your duty; you take the taxes, and you are put there to take care of us!”

Even yesterday the distracted creatures had been wholly unmanageable and had thrown stones at the building:  to-day, after the fearful conflagration and the death of their bishop, they had assembled in vast numbers, more furious and more desperate than ever.  The senators sat trembling on their antique seats of gilt ivory, the relics of departed splendor imitated from those of the Roman senators, looking at each other and shrugging their shoulders while they listened to a letter which had just reached them from the hadi.  This document required them, in conformity with Obada’s determination, to make known to the populace, by public proclamation and declaration, that any citizen whose house had been destroyed by the fire of the past night would be granted ground and building materials without payment, at Fostat across the Nile, where he might found a new home provided he would settle there and embrace Islam.

This degrading offer must be announced:  no discussion or recalcitrancy could help that.

And what could they, for their part, do for the complaining crowd?

The plague was snatching them away; the vegetables, which constituted half their food at this season, were dried up; the river, their palatable and refreshing drink, was poisoned; the dates, their chief luxury, ripened only to be rejected with loathing.  Then there was the comet in the sky, no hope of a harvest—­even of a single ear, for months to come.  The bishop dead, all confidence lost in the intercessions of the Church, God’s mercy extinct as it would seem, withdrawn from the land under infidel rule!

And they on whose help the populace counted,—­poor, weak men, councillors of no counsel, liable from hour to hour to be called to follow those who had succumbed to the plague, and who had but just quitted their vacant seats in obedience to the fateful word.