“So far as the beasts and drivers are concerned,” said the merchant, “they may stop here.  But I, and the leader of the caravan, and some of my men will only take some refreshment, and then you must guide us to the governor; I have to speak with him.  It is growing late. . .”

“That does not matter,” said the Egyptian.  “The Mukaukas prefers to see strangers after sundown on such a scorching day.  If you have any dealings with him I am the very man for you.  You have only to make play with a gold piece and I can obtain you an audience at once through Sebek, the house-steward he is my cousin.  While you are resting here I will ride on to the governor’s palace and bring you word as to how matters stand.”

CHAPTER II.

The caravansary into which Haschim and his following now turned off stood on a plot of rising ground surrounded by palm-trees.  Before the destruction of the heathen sanctuaries it had been a temple of Imhotep, the Egyptian Esculapius, the beneficient god of healing, who had had his places of special worship even in the city of the dead.  It was half relined, half buried in desert sand when an enterprising inn-keeper had bought the elegant structure with the adjacent grove for a very moderate sum.  Since then it had passed to various owners, a large wooden building for the accommodation of travellers had been added to the massive edifice, and among the palm-trees, which extended as far as the ill-repaired quay, stables were erected and plots of ground fenced in for beasts of all kinds.  The whole place looked like a cattle-fair, and indeed it was a great resort of the butchers and horse-dealers of the town, who came there to purchase.  The palm-grove, being one of the few remaining close to the city, also served the Memphites as a pleasure-ground where they could “sniff fresh air” and treat themselves in a pleasant shade.  ’Tables and seats had been set out close to the river, and there were boats on hire in mine host’s little creek; and those who took their pleasure in coming thither by water were glad to put in and refresh themselves under the palms of Nesptah.

Two rows of houses had formerly divided this rendezvous for the sober and the reckless from the highroad, but they had long since been pulled down and laid level with the ground by successive landlords.  Even now some hundreds of laborers might be seen, in spite of the scorching heat, toiling under Arab overseers to demolish a vast ruin of the date of the Ptolemies. and transporting the huge blocks of limestone and marble, and the numberless columns which once had supported the roof of the temple of Zeus, to the eastern shore of the Nile-loading them on to trucks drawn by oxen which hauled them down to the quay to cross the river in flat-bottomed boats.

Amru, the Khaliff’s general and representative, was there building his new capital.  For this the temples of the old gods were used as quarries, and they supplied not only finely-squared blocks of the most durable stone, but also myriads of Greek columns of every order, which had only to be ferried over and set up again on the other shore; for the Arabs disdained nothing in the way of materials, and made indiscriminate use of blocks and pillars in their own sanctuaries, whether they took them from heathen temples or Christian churches.