is
horse and rode off at a round trot, his slave following him.

"Katharina, child, Katharina!" was shouted from Susannah's house in
a woman's high-pitched voice. The water-wagtail started up, hastily
smoothing her hair and casting an evil glance at her rival, "the other,"
the supplanter who had basely betrayed her under the sycamores; she
clenched her little fist as she saw Paula watching Orion's retreating
form with beaming eyes. Paula went back into the house, happy and
walking on air, while the other poor, deeply-wounded child burst into
violent weeping at the first hasty words from her mother, who was not at
all satisfied with the disorder of her dress; and she ended by declaring
with defiant audacity that she would not present the flowers to the
patriarch, and would remain in her own room, for she was dying of
headache.--And so she did.

CHAPTER XXIV.

In the course of the afternoon Orion paid his visit to the Arab
governor. He crossed the bridge of boats on his finest horse.

Only two years since, the land where the new town of Fostat was now
growing up under the old citadel of Babylon had been fields and gardens;
but at Amru's word it had started into being as by a miracle; house
after house already lined the streets, the docks were full of ships and
barges, the market was alive with dealers, and on a spot where, during
the siege of the fortress, a sutler's booth had stood, a long colonnade
marked out the site of a new mosque.

There was little to be seen here now of native Egyptian life; it looked
as though some magician had transported a part of Medina itself to the
shores of the Nile. Men and beasts, dwellings and shops, though they
had adopted much of what they had found in this ancient land of culture,
still bore the stamp of their origin; and wherever Orion's eye fell
on one of his fellow-countrymen, he was a laborer or a scribe in the
service of the conquerors who had so quickly made themselves at home.

Before his departure for Constantinople one of his father's palm-groves
had occupied the spot where Amru's residence now stood opposite the
half-finished mosque. Where, now, thousands of Moslems, some on foot,
some on richly caparisoned steeds, were passing to and fro, turbaned and
robed after the manner of their tribe, with such adornment as they had
stolen or adopted from intercourse with splendor-loving nations, and
where long trains of camels dragged quarried stones to the building, in
fo