The Washington times., 1919-05-11

M neither of us knew what to say.
" and about midnight he sailed on
with the wind, taking his chance of ground.
ing on the sandbanks in the darkness.
For my part did as he bade me, though
my rowers, who had not spoken with his
men, thought that / was mad to load up
the barge with so much water.
At the first break of day I gave the
order to start. Looking over the side of
the barge it seemed to me as though the
lights of dawn had fallen from the sky
irto the Nile whereof the water had be,
come pink-hued. Moreover. this hue, which
grew ever deeper, was travelling up stream,
not down, against the course of nature,
and could not therefore have been caused
by the red soil washed from the southern
lands The bargemen stared and NUT
tered together Then one of them, leaning
over the side, scooped up water in the hol-
low of his hand and drew some into his
mouth, only to spit it out again with cry
OF fear.
"'Tis blood" he cried. Blood! Osiris
has been slain afresh, and his holy blood
fills the banks of the Nile"
So much were they afraid, indeed, that
had not forced them to hold their course
they would have turned and rowed up
stream, or beached the boat and fed into
the desert But cried TO them to steer on
northwards, for thus perhaps we should
sooner be done with this horror, and they
obeyed me. Ever as we went the hue Of
the water grew more red. almost to black
ness, till at last it seemed as though we
were travelling through a sea of gore in
which dead fish foated by the thousand,
OF struggled dying on the surface. Also
the stencil was so dreadful that we must
bind linen about our nostrils to strain the
foetid air.
We came abreast of a town and from
its streets one great vail of terror rose
to heaven. Men stood staring as though
they were drunken, looking at their red
arms. which they had dipped in the
stream. and women ran to and fro upon
the bank. tearing their hair and robes, ami
crying out such words as:
Wizards work! Bewitched! Accused!
The gods have slain each other, and men
too must die" and so forth.
Also we saw peasants digging holes at a
distance from the shore, to see perchance
if they might come to water that was sweet
and wholesome. All day long we travelled
thus through this horrible flood, while the
spray driven by the strong north wind
spotted our flesh and garments, till We
were like butchers reeking from the sham
bles. Nor could we eat any food because
of the stencil from this spray, which made
it TO taste salt as does fresh blood. only
We drank of the water which | had pro-
vrded, and the rowers who had held me to
be mad now named me the wisest of men,
one who knew what would befall in the
future
At length toward evening we noted that
the water was growing much less red with
every hour that passed. which was another
marvel, seeing that above US, upstream, it
was of the color of jasper, whereon we
paused from our rowing and. all defiled as
we were, sang a hymn and gave thanks to
Hapi, god of Nile the Great, the Secret,
the Hidden. Before sunset, indeed, the
river was clean again, save that on the
bank where we made fast for the night the
stones and rushes were all stained and
the dead fish lay in thousands polluting the
air To escape the stencil we climbed a
hill that here rose quite close TO the Nile,
in which we saw the mouth of ancient
tombs that long ago had been robbed and
left empty, purpOsing to sleep in one Of
Them.