Such a rabble surrounded them! Beggars clamouring for backsheesh, people wanting to guide them through the ruins, and vendors of relics. Mustapha and the boys had to use their sticks freely to make the crowd stand back.
Two donkey boys promised to look after the donkeys, so after threatening them with all sorts of dire punishments if any harm should come to their animals, Nabul and his cousin ran after their little American friend.
For several hours Mustapha led his little band in and out among the great columns and across the broad courts of ancient temples. There seemed to be thousands of these columns, some standing in long rows, others lying broken on the ground. How the children stared at the pictures painted on the walls by the old Egyptians, the colours as fresh as if they had just been painted. Mustapha showed them how these pictures made a regular story-book, if one only knew how to read them. Here were a lot of pictures that told all about the doings of one of the Pharaohs,—how he went to war and the battles he fought. There were other pictures showing how he went hunting, and the various kinds of animals and birds he had brought back with him from the chase.
The children thought it was most amusing to read a story-book like that, and went about trying to make up stories for themselves out of the pictures.
They stopped to watch a number of men hard at work among the ruins lifting a fallen stone column. More than three hundred Egyptians were working to set up the fallen columns and clear away the rubbish, and they worked in much the same way as did the ancient Egyptians who built the same temples. There were many young boys, too, helping to pull on the long ropes by which the columns were raised.
"Come, let us hunt and perhaps we can find some relics for ourselves," said Nabul. "One of the donkey boys last year found a little statue."
"I would like to find a mummy," exclaimed George, as the boys went to work prodding in the sand with their sticks.
"Mummies are too heavy to carry away," said Abdal, wisely shaking his head.
"I should like to find a doll," whispered Menah to her sister as they too turned over the sand in their little fingers, thinking of her own curious little dolls at home fashioned after the same manner as those frequently found among the ruins. "You remember the great traveller who went with our father in the dahabeah to some old city? How he had many men to dig in the sand for him, and how they found many wonderful things there? Well, he said that often the dolls and toys that were put in a little girl's tomb would be made of gold and silver," replied Menah. "I should like a doll of real gold to play with."
Pretty soon the children tired of their search and stretched themselves out in the shade of an enormous stone column to rest.