But at last a Mongolian merchant arrived, with a pale-yellow face and narrow eyes, which looked as though they were closed, and his hair, around his shaven head, ended in a pigtail of purple silk, with a tassel to it. This merchant offered little black balls, to be smoked in peculiar pipes; he asked Lucius to accept a pipe and a couple of little black pills in a yellow-silk bag, without payment, and to smoke them when he had the opportunity. The intoxication which they produced was something very peculiar, said the merchant.
Meanwhile Uncle Catullus had duly succeeded in acquiring the embroideries from Tyre and Nineveh at a really laughable price and presented them to his nephew, who of course paid for them in his stead. But, when Lucius held them in his hands—they were narrow strips embroidered with Assyrian lions and strange unicorns—he grew sad and said:
“What use are they to me, after all? Time was when I should have given them to Ilia as a border for her stola. Tarrar, put the pretty embroideries away, with the Mongolian pills and all the other rubbish which I have bought without wanting to: the little gold vases and the Sabaean amulets.”
“And the dear little snakes, my lord?” asked Tarrar, with glittering eyes.
“You may keep them … to play with,” said Lucius, carelessly.
Meanwhile Caleb had had the cups of sherbet handed round. Uncle Catullus thought it particularly good and considered that Lucius’ cook ought really to write down this Egyptian recipe; but Lucius gave his to Tarrar, who scooped up the sherbet greedily with his black fingers.
V
Night had fallen over the city, a dark, starless night. To escape attention, Lucius and Caleb mounted a small, inconspicuous litter at the back of the diversorium. Caleb sat at Lucius’ feet with his legs dangling out of the litter, which was lifted by four powerful Libyans, in preparation for departing at a trot.
“Have you your dagger, my lord?” asked Caleb.
Yes, Lucius had a dagger in his girdle.
“And are you wearing your Sabaean amulets?”
Yes, Lucius had hung the amulets which he had bought round his neck, for Caleb was full of confidence in these talismans of his country: the amulets warded off all ill-luck; Caleb himself wore amulets everywhere, on his chest and round his waist and even on a narrow gold bangle round his ankle.
The bearers scurried through Bruchium and past the Gymnasium and the Museum, as though they had an enemy at their heels. They came to a square that lay higher than the Great Harbour; and Lucius looked out across the quays at the different harbours. Red and green and yellow lights and signals shone over a variegated, patched throng of ships and boats and swarming people. But the wonder to Lucius’ eyes was the lighthouse of Pharos. The nine storeys of the tall marble monument, stacked one on top of the other like so many cubes, each cube smaller than the one below, ended in a sort of cupola, where a heap of burning coal gleamed from immense mirrors and reflectors, which turned and turned continually, sending bright, broad rays from the summit of the tower upon the harbours, which they lit up each time, before stretching into the dark night. Sometimes the wide sheaves of light struck the high marble bridge of the Heptastadium, which led to the lighthouse itself and which at this hour was crowded with women and idlers.
“My lord,” whispered Caleb, “would you not like to get out … and walk … there? The loveliest women in Alexandria are strolling yonder … and you can take your choice.”
Lucius shook his head:
“I want to go to the sibyl,” he said.
“Your lordship is sick,” said Caleb. “Your lordship is sick with longing and useless pining. The lovely women of Alexandria would cure your lordship. They have often cured me, my lord, when I was sick with longing and pining.”
“Longing and pining for what, Caleb?”
“For my country, for Saba, my lord, for Saba, the fairest and dearest country in the world, my lord, which I have had to leave … for the sake of business, my lord, for the sake of business. For we do no business in Saba.”
The four bearers trotted on. They were now trotting past the immemorial temple of Serapis, the Serapeum: sombre and grey it lay with its terraces below the Acropolis; and numbers of other shrines, also sombre, grey and mysterious, were ranged, with the needles of their obelisks, around the vast temple.
“These shrines are deserted, my lord,” said Caleb, “and no longer find worshippers. Even the Serapeum is deserted … for the temple of Serapis at Canopus. And the modern Alexandrians hold all this sacred quarter in but slight esteem since the quinquennial games were instituted at Nicopolis. All those who wish to do honour to Serapis repair to Nicopolis and Canopus. We will go there too, my lord, and you shall dream dreams full of import high up, on the roof of the temple. … Look, my lord, here we are, at Rhacotis. …”
The trotting bearers had left the aristocratic quarters. They were now hurrying through a narrower, sombre street.
“We had better get out here, my lord, and walk,” said Caleb. “We shall find our litter here when we return.”
Lucius and Caleb alighted. The sombre street was hardly lit, but was nevertheless swarming with people, including drunken sailors and fighting beldames.
“It’s very different here, my lord, from the Heptastadium and Lake Mareotis. Here the people, soldiers and sailors take their pleasure. Here a dagger is drawn as quick as thought. Here is nothing but kennels and taverns. But every traveller who wants to know Alexandria comes here. … Look, my lord, here it is,” said Caleb, “here!”
They had gone through a network of little lanes and
