or "the Palaces." So far as we could discover, it was in the neighbourhood of this city that Heliodore had escaped from Musa, and there, if anywhere, I hoped to gain tidings of her fate. Also something within my heart drew me to those images of forgotten gods or men.
At length, two months or more after we left Alexandria, from the deck of the boat in which we had hired a passage for the last hundred miles of our journey, Martina saw to the east the ruins of Thebes. To the west she saw other ruins, and seated in front of them two mighty figures of stone.
"This is the place," she said, and my heart leapt at her words. "Now let us land and follow our fortune."
So when the boat was tied up at sunset, to the west bank of the river, as it happened, we bade farewell to the owner and went ashore.
"Whither now?" asked Martina.
"To the figures of stone," I answered.
So she led me through fields in which the corn was growing, to the edge of the desert, meeting no man all the way. Then for a mile or more we tramped through sand, till at length, late at night, Martina halted.
"We stand beneath the statues," she said, "and they are awesome to look on; mighty, seated kings, higher than a tall tree."
"What lies behind them?" I asked.
"The ruins of a great temple."
"Lead me to that temple."
So we passed through a gateway into a court, and there we halted.
"Now tell me what you see," I said.
