“In Egypt rain does not fall. But the river, this wondrous river of ours, does the work of rain. Once every year it overflows its banks, and the thirsty land is watered, and what would otherwise be all desert, like the yellow sand you see that is not reached by the flood, becomes green with waving corn, and shady palm trees, and beautiful with fruit and flowers. Yes, no wonder we worshipped our river.” Rachel would like to have asked him how the river was worshipped, but Sheshà seemed rather to be talking to himself than to her, and there was such a curious far-away look on his face that she felt shy of questioning him. He stood gazing at the Pyramid as though he saw things even more amazing than its mighty form. “It must have taken a long time to build,” she ventured at last, rather timidly. Sheshà started. “I was dreaming,” he said. “A long time to build? Verily. Would you care to see by whom, and at what cost it was raised? I can show you. We have but to travel a little further back into the Past for that. Shut fast your eyes and bow seven times as before.” [Illustration] Rachel needed no second bidding, and in a few seconds, having obeyed the instructions of her companion, she looked again upon a scene strange and marvellous. The great Pyramid was there as before, but as yet not quite finished. Its mighty walls were built, and were being covered by the smooth case of granite, and round the great pile, like ants swarming over an ant hill, were the builders—thousands upon thousands of dark-skinned, almost naked, men, toiling like the slaves they were. Here great blocks of marble and granite were being dragged from barges on the river. There, hundreds of slaves were hoisting the huge slabs into place on the as yet, unfinished walls, while multitudes of others swarmed over and round the monument, cutting, hammering, polishing, chiselling. A hum as of innumerable bees filled the air, and indeed, Rachel was reminded of a hive, the inside of which her father had once shown her, all quivering with the movement of the worker bees as they toiled to make their cells. She gave a little scream of astonishment at the sight of the thronging multitudes, and presently heard the grave voice of Sheshà speaking. “Behold, little maiden, in what manner this Wonder of the World was fashioned. Out of the toil and labour of flesh and blood, in the days when the Pharaohs ruled in this land, and cared naught for the lives of their humbler subjects. Of these, as you see, they made slaves who did the work that in the world of to-day is performed by machines, by steam power, by electricity, by all the new inventions of modern times.” “Do the people who come to Egypt now know all this? I mean people who don’t come in a _magic_ way like me. Are there history books all about Egypt as it was long ago?”