“It is the first great pyramid of Egypt,” answered the young man. “And, little maid, you are highly favoured, for you see it as it looked nearly six thousand years ago. It was already old when Joseph was in Egypt, and Moses saw it when he lived in the palace of Pharaoh’s daughter.” Rachel gasped. “But what is it? What is it built for?” she asked. “For the tomb of a king. That pyramid—” he pointed towards it—“was built by the great King Cheops, and because you are one of the fortunate children of the magic number seven, you see one of the Seven Wonders of the World as it stood fresh from the workers’ hands.” “Dad is in Egypt now. _He_ doesn’t see it like this then?” Sheshà smiled. “Nay. He has already approached the Wonder in an electric car—like all the other travellers of to-day, and instead of these walls of granite which you behold, graven over with letters and strange figures, he has seen great rough steps.” “Steps?” echoed Rachel. “Why are there _steps_ up the side now?” “Because beneath these smooth walls the pyramid is built of gigantic blocks of stone, and now that their covering has been removed, the blocks look like steps which can be, and _are_ climbed by people who live in the world to-day.” “But why was its beautiful shining case taken off?” Rachel asked, looking with curiosity at the carving upon it. “Because in the course of long years the people of other nations who conquered Egypt and had no respect for my wondrous land, broke up the ‘beautiful shining case,’ to quote your own words, little maid, and used it for building temples in which they worshipped gods strange and new.” Rachel glanced again at her companion. She was still so bewildered that she scarcely knew which she should ask first of the hundred questions crowding to her mind. And then everything around her was so strange and beautiful! The yellow sand of the desert, the blue sky, the burning sun, the long strip of fertile land bordering a great river. “That must be the Nile,” she thought, remembering her geography. “The Nile is in Egypt.” Just as though he read her thoughts, Sheshà again broke silence. “Do you wonder that we worshipped the river in those far-off days?” he asked, dreamily. “Did you? Why?” Rachel gazed at him curiously. “It was, and is, the life-giver,” returned Sheshà. “But for that river, there would never have been any food in this land. And therefore no cities, no temples, no pyramids, no great schools of learning as there were here in ancient days when Moses was ‘learnèd in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’” “Yes, but how could the river make the corn grow, and give you food?” asked Rachel. “I thought it was the _rain_ that made things grow.”