last look at the wonderful scene.

Groups of woolly-haired Africans, as black as the basalt tablets in the
museum, were seated on the floor of the white marble court. Some were
eating their frugal meal; some were lying on their backs resting; while
others were lost in prayer. Here and there a tall _sheikh_ or a
professor was standing talking to a group of students, seated on the
ground at his feet, his flowing robes and majestic turban proclaiming
the distinction of his calling. Not one of the professors or teachers
received a penny for their services; the most learned men in Egypt
offered their services free. The idea and theory of the institution is
beautiful and elevating.

Yet Michael knew that to Freddy the whole thing was a waste of time and
an antediluvian affair. In the matter of education, the modern
Egyptian would have been left hopelessly behind in the progress of the
world, but for the Government schools instituted under the British
occupation. These men at el-Azhar were learning nothing which could
ever serve to put one penny into their pockets.

He could hear Freddy repeating his favourite words of a great modern
writer, "I should always distrust the progress of people who walk on
their heads. I should always beware of people who sacrifice the
interests of their country to those of mankind."

Freddy had thrown the words at Michael's head hundreds of times when he
had given expression to his Utopian ideas of oiling the world's
creaking hinges, of preventing his predicted world-wide disaster.
Michael always considered that the whole of what was termed the
civilized world was "walking on its head," that only vanity could blind
those who ruled and governed, only arrogance could hide the fact that
the seats of the mighty were tottering.

Freddy did honestly distrust people "who walked on their heads," yet
Michael thought that he would surely still more distrust the people who
did not walk according to their consciences, people who lived the lives
marked out for them by others, by the conventions of the world.

This old man, in his dark cell, nursed in the very bowels of Islam, had
achieved his heart's desire. He had fulfilled the purpose of his life,
a purpose which to Freddy seemed useless and wasteful. That was
another question. He had left a life of endless toil under the
tropical sun of primitive Africa for what to Freddy would have seemed a
mad purpose--to walk to Cairo and spend the last