Trembling with excitement, Rachel did as she was told, and at the last tap of her foot, was conscious of a most strange and wonderful sensation. She seemed to be out of doors, and not only out of doors, but rushing through the air, while a noise like that of a great engine almost deafened her. “We are near Babylon!” said a voice close to her ear, and, as she opened her eyes, Rachel gasped, for she was seated in an aeroplane, and the pilot of the machine, in the dress of an airman, was—Sheshà! Rachel had so often longed to fly, that at first she could think of nothing but the wonder and excitement of her first rush through the air, and it was only by degrees that she began to notice the earth below. The machine was dropping nearer to it now, and she saw they were flying over a vast plain through which flowed a river. Three large mounds near this river broke the monotony of the desert place, overarched by the beautiful blue sky, and when the aeroplane skimmed yet lower, Rachel saw little figures moving near the mounds, like ants running over an ant heap. At the same moment the noise of the aeroplane’s engine ceased, and she was able to talk to the pilot. “Why those are _men_, aren’t they?” she said, pointing to the tiny figures. “And what are those heaps of rubbish there?” “All that is left of Babylon—the beautiful and proud City of Babylon,” answered the voice of the pilot, Sheshà. Rachel looked at the desert plain with its three “rubbish heaps,” as she called them, in silent astonishment. “Is _that_ where the bulls with wings and the other things in the British Museum come from?” she added at length. “Some of them—yes.” “And are those little men down there digging up other things now?” “Yes. They are working for the Museum. By-and-by, in a few weeks, perhaps, you may read a column in your newspaper at breakfast time giving an account of the latest things found in that heap,” he pointed to the largest of them. “That mound below you is called _Babil_, and it covers the palace in which dwelt King Nebuchadnezzar, nearly three thousand years ago.” “The Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible that I was reading about with Miss Moore only this morning?” “Yes—the Nebuchadnezzar who conquered the city of Jerusalem and brought the Children of Israel captives to Babylon—the Nebuchadnezzar who set up the golden image to which Daniel would not bow down.” “And the fiery furnace!” interrupted Rachel, eagerly, “that didn’t burn the three Children of Israel when Nebuchadnezzar threw them into it.... I remember!... And there’s a psalm about them when they were prisoners in Babylon.” “_By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion_,” quoted Sheshà, in a dreamy voice. “There is one of the rivers of Babylon.” He pointed to the great stream—the Euphrates—on both sides of which the city was built.