of molten lead. Still the clear bright spray splashed up when the gulls
dipped their pinions in the water as they floated above it, hither and
thither, restless and uttering shrill little cries, as though driven by
terror.

Three men were walking slowly along the causeway which led from the top
of the hill down into the valley, but it was only the eldest, who walked
in front of the other two, who gave any heed to the sky, the sea, the
gulls, and the barren plain that lay silent at his feet. He stopped,
and as soon as he did so, the others followed his example. The landscape
below him seemed to rivet his gaze, and it justified the disapproval
with which he gently shook his head, which was somewhat sunk into his
beard. A narrow strip of desert stretched westward before him as far as
the eye could reach, dividing two levels of water. Along this natural
dyke a caravan was passing, and the elastic feet of the camels fell
noiselessly on the road they trod. The leader, wrapped in his white
mantle, seemed asleep, and the camel-drivers to be dreaming; the
dull-colored eagles by the road-side did not stir at their approach.
To the right of the stretch of flat coast along which the road ran from
Syria to Egypt, lay the gloomy sea, overhung by grey clouds; to the left
lay the desert, a strange and mysterious feature in the landscape, of
which the eye could not see the end, either to the east or to the west,
and which looked here like a stretch of snow, there like standing water,
and again like a thicket of rushes.

The eldest of our travellers gazed constantly towards heaven or into the
distance; the second, a slave who carried rugs and cloaks on his broad
shoulders, never took his eyes off his master; and the third, a young,
free-man, looked wearily and dreamily down the road.

A broad path, leading to a stately temple, crossed that which led from
the summit of the mountain to the coast, and the bearded pedestrian
turned up it; but he followed it only for a few steps, then he turned
his head with a dissatisfied air, muttered a few unintelligible words
into his beard, turned round and hastily retraced his steps to the
narrow way, down which he went towards the valley. His young companion
followed him without raising his head or interrupting his reverie, as
if he were his shadow, but the slave lifted his cropped fair head and
a stolen smile crossed his lips as on the left hand side of the Kasius
road he caught sight of a black ki