the attack on the nuns, and the fearful heat had still gone on in
creasing. The river, instead of rising had sunk lower and lower; the
carrier-pigeons from Ethiopia, looked for day by day with growing anxiety
and excitement, brought no news of a rising stream even in the upper
Nile, and the shallow, stagnant and evil-smelling waters by the banks
began to be injurious, nay, fatal, to the health of the whole population.

Close to the shore, especially, the water had a reddish tinge, and the
usually sweet, pure fluid in the canals was full of strange vegetable
growths and other foreign bodies putrid and undrinkable. The common
people usually shirked the trouble of filtering it, and it was among them
that the greater number died of a mortal and infectious pestilence, till
then unknown. The number of victims swelled daily, and the approach of
the comet kept pace with the growing misery of the town. Every one
connected it with the intense heat of the season, with the delay in the
inundation, and the appearance of the sickness; and the leech and his
friend often argued about these matters, for Philippus would not admit
that the meteor had any influence on human affairs, while Horapollo
believed that it had, and supported his view by a long series of
examples.

His antagonist would not accept them and asked for arguments; at the same
time he, like every one else, felt the influence of a vague dread of some
imminent and terrible disaster hanging over the earth and humanity at
large.

And, just as every heart in Memphis felt oppressed by such forebodings,
and by the weight of a calamity, which indeed no longer threatened them
but had actually come upon them, so the roads, the gardens, the palms and
sycamores by the way-side were covered by thick layers of dingy, choking