Mashallah!; A flight into Egypt
Charles Warren Stoddard
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, April 21, 2013)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ...the diminutiveness of that sandal that he caused the country to be scoured in search of its owner, and he shared his throne with her and built her a pyramid for ever. In those days this haggard face was comely, with rose tints upon the cheeks and a royal helmet upon the head. There was an altar beneath the heart of it, and the incense from that altar curled over the breast that is now buried in sand, and ascended to the nostrils that have crumbled away, and the swarms of slaves passed to and fro under the grateful shadow of the drooping wings. Pale in the moonlight, the proud head lifted to the stars that shine for ever in those latitudes, the sad face turned away from the mountains of stone that have grown up beside her. Ah! if the lips would but break their eternal silence, and reveal to us by what almost superhuman power the Pyramids were piled up into the sky! But no! she is a woman, and she will never tell. XII. MEMPHIS AND SAKKARAH. All night the Sphinx kept silent watch over our sleepless camp. Again and again we stole into our tent and wrestled with the Angel of Sleep, but grew only the more wakeful in consequence of our exertions. Again and again we went forth into the desert and strode noiselessly to the base of the great solemn image, and felt the majesty of its presence, and began to picture in the moonlight the splendid pageants of the past. The Pyramids rose, stone by stone, above the wind-swept plains, and the great army of toiling slaves crowded about us so densely that at last, overwhelmed, we returned to camp and stirred the fire into swift-leaping flames--for the dawn was chilly--and lit our pipes, and talked of the pilgrimage to Memphis and Sakkarah. Perhaps it was the moonlight that quickened our imaginations and made...