he rose--that is to say what good will you get out of me?"

"Well then, carry your strange flower-bed on board," said the old man
laughing. "Now, are you satisfied Joanna?"

Once more he embraced her and Pulcheria and, as a tear from his wife's
eyes dropped on his hand, he whispered in her ear: "You have been the
rose of my life; and without you Eden--Paradise itself can have no joys."

The boat pushed out into the middle of the stream and was soon hidden by
the darkness from the eyes of the women on the bank.

The convent bells were soon heard tolling after the fugitives: Paula and
Pulcheria were pulling them. There was not a breath of air; not enough
even to fill the small sail of the seaward-bound boat; but the rowers
pulled with all their might and the vessel glided northward. The captain
stood at the prow with his pole; sounding the current: his brother, no
less skilled, took the helm.--The shallowness of the water made
navigation very difficult, and those who knew the river best might easily
run aground on unexpected shoals or newly-formed mud-drifts. The moon had
scarcely risen when the boat was stranded at a short distance below
Fostat, and the men had to go overboard to push it off to an
accompaniment of loud singing which, as it were, welded their individual
wills and efforts into one. Thus it was floated off again; but such
delays were not unfrequent till they reached Letopolis, where the Nile
forks, and where they hoped to steal past the toll-takers unobserved.
Almost against their expectation, the large boat slipped through under
the heavy mist which rises from the waters before sunrise, and the
captain and crew, steering down the Phatmetic branch of the river with
renewed spirit, ascribed their success to the intercession of the pious
sisters.

By daylight it was easier to avoid the sand-banks; but how narrow was the
water-way-at this season usually overflowing! The beds of papyrus on the
banks now grew partly on dry land, and their rank green had faded to
straw-color. The shifting ooze of the shore had hardened to stone, and
the light west wind, which now rose and allowed of their hoisting the
sail, swept clouds of white dust before it. In many cases the soil was
deeply fissured and wide cracks ran across the black surface, yawning to
heaven for water like thirsty throats. The water-wheels stood idle, far
away from the stream, and the fields they were wont to irrigate looked
like the threshing floors