CHAPTER IV.
UNDER THE PYRAMID.
Max slept soundly, and for hours did not dream.
When the visions of the night visited his brain, they shaped themselves in pleasing form.
He saw again the massacre of the Mamelukes, but the sight seemed stripped of its hideousness, and it appeared to Max that the foul murder committed by Mohammed Ali was necessary—that from that murder would spring the regeneration of Egypt.
Max saw the flight of Emin Bey, and fancied that the brave Mameluke still lived, and was at the head of an all-conquering army, overcoming French and English and Turk, and proclaiming the freedom of Egypt from foreign rule.
And as all this passed before the mental vision of the sleeping American boy, he thought that by the side of the conqueror he rode—not as he was then, a beardless youth, but with bronzed face and flowing beard—a turban on his head, and the sacred carpet of Mohammed carried by his side.
Then his vision changed, and he saw his father, not dead, but living, and successful as a merchant. By his side was the wife whose love had been so lavishly given to her husband and her son.
The sight of his father and mother brought tears to the dreamer’s eyes, and caused him to wake.
It was some time before he could bring back to his memory the events of the preceding day.
When they recurred to him he felt most wretched.