, and her life
spared till his return. He also reserved the right of deciding Orion's
fate.

Mary and Rustem had met Amru at Berenice, on the Egyptian coast of
the Red Sea. This decaying sea-port was connected with Medina by a
pigeon-post, and in reply to his viceroy's enquiry with reference to the
victim about to be offered by the despairing Egyptians to the Nile, Omar
had sent a reply which had been immediately forwarded to the Kadi.

The burning of their town had brought new and fearful suffering on the
stricken Memphites, and notwithstanding Katharina's death the Nile still
did not rise. The Kadi therefore once more summoned a meeting of all
the inhabitants from both sides of the river, three days after the
interrupted marriage-festival. It was held under the palms by Nesptah's
inn, and there he proclaimed to the multitude, Moslem and Christian,
by means of the Arab herald and Egyptian interpreter, what the Khaliff
commanded him to declare, namely: that God, the One, the All-merciful,
scorned human sacrifice. In this firm conviction he, Omar, would beseech
Allah the Compassionate, and he sent a letter which was to be cast into
the river in his name.

And this letter was addressed:

"To the River of Egypt." And its contents were as follows:

"If thou, O River, flowest of thyself, then swell not; but if it be God,
the One, the Compassionate, that maketh thee to flow, then we entreat
the All-merciful that he will bid thee rise!"

"That which is not of God," wrote Amru in the letter which enclosed
Omar's, "what shall it profit men? But all things created are by Him,
and so is your noble river. The Most High will hearken to Omar's prayers
and ours, and I therefore command that all of you--Moslems, Christians,
and Jews, shall gather together in the Mosque on the other side of the
Nile which I have built to the glory of the All-merciful, and that you
there lift up your souls in one great common prayer, to the end that God
may hear you and take pity on your sufferings!"

And the Kadi bid all the people to go across the Nile and they obeyed
his bidding. Bishop John called on his clergy and marched at their head,
leading the Christians; the priests and elders of the Jews led their
people next to the Jacobites; and side by side with these the Moslems
gathered in the magnificent pillared sanctuary of Amru, where the three
congregations of different creeds lifted up, their hearts and eyes and
voices to the pitying Father