terrible face, he shrank
back in dread, as if the God Osiris himself, in the Ship of Death, had
reached the harbour. But the Wanderer bade him have no fear, telling him
that he came with much wealth and with a great gift for the Pharaoh. The
pilot, therefore, plucked up heart, and took the helm, and between the
two great hills of blazing fire the vessel glided into the smooth waters
of the River of Egypt, the flames glittering on the Wanderer's mail as
he stood by the mast and chanted the Song of the Bow.

Then, by the counsel of the pilot, the vessel was steered up the river
towards the Temple of Heracles in Tanis, where there is a sanctuary for
strangers, and where no man may harm them. But first, the dead Sidonians
were cast overboard into the great river, for the dead bodies of men are
an abomination to the Egyptians. And as each body struck the water the
Wanderer saw a hateful sight, for the face of the river was lashed into
foam by the sudden leaping and rushing of huge four-footed fish, or so
the Wanderer deemed them. The sound of the heavy plunging of the great
water-beasts, as they darted forth on the prey, smiting at each other
with their tails, and the gnashing of their jaws when they bit too
eagerly, and only harmed the air, and the leap of a greedy sharp snout
from the waves, even before the dead man cast from the ship had quite
touched the water--these things were horrible to see and hear through
the blackness and by the firelight. A River of Death it seemed, haunted
by the horrors that are said to prey upon the souls and bodies of the
Dead. For the first time the heart of the Wanderer died within him,
at the horror of the darkness and of this dread river and of the
water-beasts that dwelt within it. Then he remembered how the birds had
fled in terror from this place, and he bethought him of the blood-red
sea.

When the dead men were all cast overboard and the river was once more
still, the Wanderer spoke, sick at heart, and inquired of the pilot why
the sea had run so red, and whether war was in the land, and why there
was night over all that country. The fellow answered that there was
no war, but peace, yet the land was strangely plagued with frogs and
locusts and lice in all their coasts, the sacred river Sihor running red
for three whole days, and now, at last, for this the third day, darkness
over all the world. But as to the cause of these curses the pilot knew
nothing, being a plain man. Only the s