Mohammed turns to Osman. "Be joyous, my friend! We have done with the past, and a brilliant future awaits us! Look, there rests my Masa, and, I tell you, a monument prouder and grander than was ever erected to woman, shall rise over her grave! The whole sea shall be her monument, and on the coast of Egypt will I erect one to my Masa, to my love, and my revenge!" CHAPTER V THE CAMP AT ABOUKIR. THE life of the Mameluke beys had for months been a continuous festival. Nothing but pleasure and festivity; nothing but assurances of love and friendship on the part of their former enemies, the Turks. Since the hated Franks, after so many struggles, so many defeats and fruitless shedding of blood, had embarked in their proud ships and returned to Europe, the prospects for peace in the land that was bleeding from a thousand wounds seemed to be bright. Friends and enemies had made these wounds; friends and enemies had torn the once fair form of the beautiful land of the Pharaohs, and converted it into a hideous corpse. The battle-fields of Aboukir, the Pyramids of Gheezeh, the blood- soaked fields of Syria, the overthrown walls of St. Jean d'Acre, and of the magnifient city of the caliphs, Cairo, tell of the French general, Bonaparte, who, at the head of his army, had entered upon a crusade in order to bless Egypt with civilization. This was his pretext. He intended, with his sans culottes, to carry civilization to the Orient, and, not being able to convert them to Christianity by persuasion or, trickery, he determined to baptize them with blood. At first the Mameluke beys, who until then had ruled in Egypt, and had, in protracted struggles, endeavored to cast off their allegiance to the grand-sultan, had supposed it would be an easy matter to drive back the French barbarians from the yellow shores of Africa. Mourad Bey, the chief of all the Mameluke beys, was sitting at a joyous banquet in Alexandria, when several of his officers rushed into the hall to announce that a number of ships were entering the harbor, and that a body of Franks had already landed. The Mameluke chieftain laughed, and, without rising from his seat, said to the messengers, "Give these French beggars a bakshish, and tell them to clear out, or Mourad Bey will compel them to do so." "But," observed the English consul, who had just entered the hall, "excellency, these Franks have come to possess themselves of Egypt. Hasten to make preparations for your defence." Mourad Bey laughed again. "You take a gloomy view of things, my friend.--Go and give these wretches something to eat, and, as I have already ordered, a little money also, and then advise them to depart with all speed, or I will have them driven off by my servants."