died--the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the man and the
woman, the prince and the slave. The pestilence slew and slew, and
ceased not by day or by night, and those who escaped from the pestilence
were slain of the famine. No longer could the bodies of the children of
Kôr be preserved according to the ancient rites, because of the number
of the dead, therefore were they hurled into the great pit beneath
the cave, through the hole in the floor of the cave. Then, at last, a
remnant of this the great people, the light of the whole world, went
down to the coast and took ship and sailed northwards; and now am I, the
Priest Junis, who write this, the last man left alive of this great city
of men, but whether there be any yet left in the other cities I know
not. This do I write in misery of heart before I die, because Kôr
the Imperial is no more, and because there are none to worship in her
temple, and all her palaces are empty, and her princes and her captains
and her traders and her fair women have passed off the face of the
earth."

I gave a sigh of astonishment--the utter desolation depicted in this
rude scrawl was so overpowering. It was terrible to think of this
solitary survivor of a mighty people recording its fate before he too
went down into darkness. What must the old man have felt as, in ghastly
terrifying solitude, by the light of one lamp feebly illuminating a
little space of gloom, he in a few brief lines daubed the history of his
nation's death upon the cavern wall? What a subject for the moralist, or
the painter, or indeed for any one who can think!

"Doth it not occur to thee, oh Holly," said Ayesha, laying her hand upon
my shoulder, "that those men who sailed North may have been the fathers
of the first Egyptians?"