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He had been riding towards it for about half an hour when the caravan halted at the last station but one, on the high road between Kolzum and Babylon. A considerable troop of horse soldiers dismounted at the same time, but Orion had not summoned these to protect him; on the contrary, he was in their charge and they were taking him, a prisoner, to Fostat.
And when he turned his eye earthwards again, still, even there, he had that which made it seem worth the cost of enduring the pangs of living and the brunt of the hardest battle: Paula and her love. The nearer he approached Fostat, the more ardently his heart swelled with longing. Heaven must grant him to see her once more, once more to clasp her in his arms, before the end!
He opened the door of his Mussulman town, and allowed them to live in Fostât and to build churches there in the midst of the Mussulman soldiers, even when Islamism was still without a temple in the city, or a consecrated place worthy of the religion of the conquerors. Amr at length resolved to build in his new capital a magnificent mosque in imitation of the one at Mecca.
In the year 750 the Ommayads were supplanted by the Abbasids, who transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. The first Abbasid caliph was Abu'l-Abbas, who claimed descent from Abbas, the uncle of Muhammed. The caliph Merwan II., the last of the Ommayads, in his flight from his enemies came to Egypt and sent troops from Fostât to hold Alexandria.
In November, 1168, he led the Christian army as far as the Nile, and was about to seize Fostat, the old unfortified Arab metropolis of Egypt. The inhabitants, however, preferred to set fire to the city rather than that it should fall into the hands of the Christians. To this very day many traces may be seen in the neighbourhood of Cairo of this conflagration.
"As soon as I find a clue you shall hear from me; now, however, I must go across the Nile to see Amru the great general; I go in all confidence for I know that my poor, brave Rustem is in good hands, friend Philippus. My first enquiries shall be made in Fostat, rely upon that, my daughter." "I do indeed," said Paula with pleased emotion. "When shall we meet again?"
In 211 a.h. he proceeded to Fostât and there dismissed Abd Allah ibn es-Sari and replaced him by Ayad ibn Ibrahim, whom he also dismissed the following year, giving the governorship to Isa ibn Yazid, surnamed el-Jalud.
Whichever way the young man turned, bright and flashing eyes met his gaze, energetic, resolute, and enterprising faces; no bowed heads, no dull, brooding looks, no gloomy resignation like those in his native town on the other shore. Here, in Fostat, his blood flowed more swiftly; there, existence was an oppressive burden. Everything attracted him to the Arabs!
And when he turned his eye earthwards again, still, even there, he had that which made it seem worth the cost of enduring the pangs of living and the brunt of the hardest battle: Paula and her love. The nearer he approached Fostat, the more ardently his heart swelled with longing. Heaven must grant him to see her once more, once more to clasp her in his arms, before the end!
He was commissioned by the governor to bring it back to Fostat. And the fugitives seemed disposed to obey, for the boat lay to. The captain had recognized the speaker as the captain of the watch from Fostat, an inexorable man; and now, for the first time, he clearly understood the deadly peril of the enterprise.
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