to house, and by the harbor, close to the river shore, statues of Hadrian
and his wife had been erected. But the storm tore down the masts and the
garlands, and the lashed waters of the Nile had beaten with irresistible
fury on the bank; had carried away piece after piece of the fertile
shore, flung its waves, like liquid wedges into the rifts of the parched
land; and excavated the high bank by the landing-quay.

After midnight the storm was still raging with unheard-of fury; it swept
the palm thatch from many of the houses, and beat the stream with such
violence that it was like a surging sea. The full unbroken force of the
flood beat again and again on the promontory on which stood the statues
of the Imperial couple. Shortly before the first dawn of light the
little tongue of land, which was protected by no river wall, could no
longer resist the furious attack of the waters; huge clods of soil
slipped and fell with a loud noise into the river and were followed by a
large mass of the cliff, with a roar as of thunder the plateau behind
sank, and the statue of the Emperor which stood upon it began to totter
and lean slowly to its fall. When day broke it was lying with the
pedestal still above ground, but the head was buried in the earth.

At break of day the citizens left their houses to inquire of the
fishermen and boatmen what had occurred in the harbor during the night.
As soon as the storm had abated, hundreds, nay thousands, of men, women
and children thronged the landing-place round the fallen statue--they saw
the land-slip and knew that the current had torn the land from the bank
and caused the mischief. Was it that Hapi, the Nile-god, was angry with
the Emperor? At any rate the disaster that had befallen the image of the
sovereign boded evil, that was clear.

The Toparch, the chief municipal authority, at once set to work to