"I looked again, and recognized the truth. I saw it was not the Nile of to-day. I saw, also, that its stream was at a height, different from its present mark upon the nilometer. I was amazed, and awaited with intense expectation. Suddenly I saw a party of spearmen enter a hut, which I perceived was one of a group that was occupied by Hebrew workmen, who were engaged upon the governor's palace. Presently they came forth, two of them, each bearing an infant aloft upon a spear, which was thrust through it, and followed by shrieking women. I could hear and see all as if I were on the spot. I impulsively advanced to slay the men, for all seemed so real, but as I did so, saw at my feet a yawning gulf. Then the men cast the infants into the Nile. I saw three others go into another hut, whence they were driven forth by two desperate Hebrews, who, armed with straw-cutters, slew two of them; but the other fled, and returning with his comrades, they set fire to the hut of rushes, and consumed the inmates within it. I now perceived that it seemed drawing towards the close of day. From a hut, near the water, a man and a young girl, both Hebrews, stole forth, and collecting bulrushes in their arms, returned to the hut. It was now night. I had seen the shades of evening fall over the scenery, and the stars come out. Yet, by a power incomprehensible to me, I could look into the closed and barred hut, and see that, by the light of a rush dipped in bitumen, three of its inmates were making, in secret haste, a large basket. I saw them finish it, and then beheld the man smear it within and without with pitch. From their conversation, I learned that they wished it to resist water, and that they were to commit some precious freight to its frail protection; what, I could not learn; as, when they spoke of it, their colloquy was in low hushed tones, and with looks of fear, especially the two females, who wept very much. One of them, I learned by their words, was the daughter of the man by a former wife. There was another child, a boy apparently of the age of three years, lying in sweet sleep upon a bed of rushes, made up in a corner of the hut. When the little ark was done, I watched with the deepest interest their further proceedings. At length the three went out together, and to my surprise I saw, by the setting moon, that it was near dawn. They bent their steps, swiftly and silently, towards the ancient temple of Isis, which was then, as now, in ruins, and deserted by every Egyptian, for the sacrilege done therein under the reign of Bnon, the Phœnician Pharaoh. I could see them steal along the tangled avenue beneath the palm-trees, and through that of the broken sphinxes, until they came to the pyramidion of the obelisk of Sesostris I. Here a deep, ancient excavation, covered with vines and rushes, showed a flight of broken steps. After carefully looking all about, to see if they were observed, they descended. In a few minutes