Sighing wearily at the end of her summer sleep, the City of the Sun looked wistfully down the Nile from which at any time now invasion might be expected. Barry had conceived something very like friendship for Hassan es-Sugra. The man fascinated him. Delicate in form and features, soft-spoken and mild-eyed, slow of movement and speech, invariably unruffled, Barry had detected beneath the velvet surface an indomitable will, and something else. On the evening of their arrival, leaving Danbazzar and John Cumberland at the hotel poring over rough plans, Barry had set out with Hassan to view the celebrated spectacle of Karnak by moonlight. The evening was oppressively hot. The sky looked like a dome of lapis lazuli. The moon was such a moon as gave birth to Isis; fronds of palms seemed to be carved out of ebony; and the whiteness of the buildings was dazzling. Plaintive notes of a reed pipe crept up from the river, with more distant throbbing of a _darabukkeh_. A great zest of life, an eagerness to inhale, as it were, the unfamiliar perfume of this strange land, possessed Barry. He hurried as though bound for his father’s New York office. But: “Sir,” said Hassan, in his soft, caressing voice, “there is no need for haste, and the evening is hot.” Barry pulled up and glanced aside at his companion. The gaze of the gazelle-like eyes met his own. Hassan smiled. “Always,” the speaker went on hesitantly yet with perfect expression, “always the gentlemen who come from America and from Europe are in so great a hurry; particularly the gentlemen from America. Yet there is so much time, and life in Egypt is very beautiful for those who will rest and enjoy it.” Barry laughed. “No wonder you always look so cool,” he commented. “Now I come to think of it, I have never seen you hurry.” Hassan extended his slender brown hands, his ebony stick held lightly between the first and second fingers of the left. “What is there to hurry for?” he asked softly. “We are all going the same way. Why should we try to pass one another? Everything that life has to give us is ours to-night. Let us enjoy it, for to-night will never come again.” Barry stared curiously at this survival of the Arabian philosophers, but checked his eager steps and walked on sedately beside the dignified Egyptian. Spots of interest were pointed out by Hassan, and, as they moved through the streets, it became apparent to Barry that his companion possessed many acquaintances in Upper Egypt by whom he was held in high esteem. A most notable demonstration of this came when they passed a café in the native town. A number of men sat smoking outside. Five of them, on sight of the approaching figure, sprang up and performed a graceful Arab salute with the right hand. All were fine types, tall muscular fellows, and different from the townsmen surrounding them. Hassan es-Sugra gravely returned their salutation, but they remained standing until the café was passed.