to Alexandria
and there buried in the church of St. John by his father's side; but the
carrier pigeon, by which the news of the governor's death had been sent
to the Patriarch, had returned with instructions to deposit the body in
the family tomb at Memphis, as there were difficulties in the way of the
fulfillment of his wishes.
Such a funeral procession had not been seen there within the memory of
man. Even the Moslem viceroy, the great general Amru, came over from the
other side of the Nile, with his chief military and civil officers,
to pay the last honors to the just and revered governor. Their brown,
sinewy figures, and handsome calm faces, their golden helmets and shirts
of mail, set with precious stones--trophies of the war of destruction in
Persia and Syria--their magnificent horses with splendid trappings, and
the authoritative dignity of their bearing made a great impression
on the crowd. They arrived with slow and impressive solemnity; they
returned like a cloud driven before the storm, galloping homewards from
the burial-ground along the quay, and then thundering and clattering
over the bridge of boats. Vivid and dazzling lightnings had flashed
through the wreaths of white dust that shrouded them, as their gold
armor reflected the sun. Verily, these horsemen, each of them worthy to
be a prince in his pride, could find it no very hard task to subdue the
mightiest realms on earth.
Men and women alike had gazed at them with trembling admiration: most of
all at the heroic stature and noble dusky face of Amru, and at the son
of the deceased Mukaukas, who, by the Moslem's desire, rode at his side
in mourning garb on a fiery black horse.
The handsome youth, and the lordly, powerful man were a pair from whom
the women were loth to turn their eyes; for both alike were of noble
demeanor, both of splendid stature, both equally skilled in controlling
the impatience of their steeds, both born to command. Many a Memphite
was more deeply impressed by the head of the famous warrior, erect on
a long and massive throat, with its sharply-chiselled aquiline nose
and flashing black eyes, than by the more regular features and fine,
slightly-waving locks of the governor's son--the last representative of
the oldest and proudest race in all Egypt.
The Arab looked straight before him with a steady, commanding gaze;
the youth, too, looked up and forwards, but turned from time to time
to survey the crowd of mourners. As he cau
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