“It is the place that I saw in my dream many years ago at Aar,” I said.

“It may be,” she answered, “but if so it must have changed, since, save for a jackal creeping among the columns and a dog that barks in some distant village, I neither see nor hear a living thing.  What now, Olaf?”

“Now we will eat and sleep,” I said.  “Perhaps light will come to us in our sleep.”

So we ate of the food we had brought with us, and afterwards lay down to rest in a little chamber, painted round with gods, that Martina found in the ruins of the temple.

During that night no dreams came to me, nor did anything happen to disturb us, even in this old temple, of which the very paving-stones were worn through by the feet of the dead.

Before the dawn Martina led me back to the colossal statues, and we waited there, hoping that we should hear them sing, as tradition said they did when the sun rose.  Yet the sun came up as it had done from the beginning of the world, and struck upon those giant effigies as it had done for some two thousand years, or so I was told, and they remained quite silent.  I do not think that ever I grieved more over my blindness than on this day, when I must depend upon Martina to tell me of the glory of that sunrise over the Egyptian desert and those mighty ruins reared by the hands of forgotten men.

Well, the sun rose, and, since the statues would not speak, I took my harp and played upon it, and Martina sang a wild Eastern song to my playing.  It seemed that our music was heard.  At any rate, a few folk going out to labour came to see by whom it was caused, and finding only two wandering musicians, presently went away again.  Still, one remained, a woman, Coptic by her dress, with whom I heard Martina talk.  She asked who we were and why we had come to such a place, whereon Martina repeated to her the story which we had told a hundred times.  The woman answered that we should earn little money in those parts, as the famine had been sore there owing to the low Nile of the previous season.  Until the crops were ripe again, which in the case of most of them would not be for some weeks, even food, she added, must be scarce, though few were left to eat it, since the Moslems had killed out most of those who dwelt in that district of Upper Egypt.

Martina replied that she knew this was so, and therefore we had proposed either to travel on to Nubia or to return north.  Still, as I, her blind uncle, was not well, we had landed from a boat hoping that we might find some place where we could rest for a week or two until I grew stronger.

“Yet,” she continued meaningly, “being poor Christian folk we know not where to look for such a place, since Cross worshippers are not welcome among those who follow the Prophet.”

Now, when the woman heard that we were Christians her voice changed.  “I also am a Christian,” she said; “but give me the sign.”