At their feet, winding its way for thousands of miles between limitless
areas of sand, its banks lined for narrow distances with green fields
and the habitations of men, flowed dark and wondrous the one thing that
makes human life possible in all the lands of the Sudan and of Egypt--
flowed from sources that for ages were undiscovered, and which even in
this day of boasted knowledge are yet incompletely known--the Nile.
In the lazy indolence of that sun-baked land of silence, idleness and
love, affection is quickly cultivated, as the fast-living set who go up
there each winter know well. Hubert Waldron, man of the world that he
was, had watched and knew. He stood there, however, dumbfounded, for
there was now presented a very strange and curious state of affairs.
Lola, the dark-eyed girl who had enchanted him and held him by the great
mystery which surrounded her, was now revealed keeping tryst with a
stranger--a mysterious Frenchman who had come up from the blazing
Sudan--a man who had come from nowhere.
He strained his eyes in an endeavour to distinguish the stranger's
outline, but in vain. The man was standing in the deep shadow. Only
the girl's familiar form silhouetted against the starlit sky.
"We must be very careful of my uncle," the girl urged. "The slightest
suspicion, and we shall assuredly be parted, and for ever."
"I will exercise every discretion, never fear, dearest," was his
reassuring reply, and again he took her soft, fair face in both his
hands and kissed her passionately upon the lips.
"But, Henri," she exclaimed presently, "are you quite sure they suspect
nothing at home--that you have never betrayed to anyone your affection
for me? Remember, there are spies everywhere."
"Surely you can trust me, my darling?" he asked in reproach.
"Of course, dear," she cried, again raising her lips and kissing him
fondly. "But, naturally, I am full of fear lest our secret be known."
"It cannot be known," was his confident reply. "We can both keep the
truth from others. Trust me."
"And when we return to Europe. What then?" she asked in a low, changed
tone.
"Then we shall see. Why try and look into the future? It is useless to
anticipate difficulties which may not, after all, exist," he said
cheerfully, again stroking her hair with tenderness.
He spoke in French in a soft, refined voice, and was evidently a
gentleman, though he still stood in the shadow and was therefore
undistinguishable. He was holding the girl in his arms and a silence
had fallen between them--a silence only broken by the low lapping of the
Nile waters, and that rhythmic chant now receding: "Ah-lal-hey!
Al-lal-hey?"
"My darling!" whispered the stranger passionately. "My own faithful
darling. I love you--ah! so much more than you can ever tell. And,
alas! I am so unworthy of you."
She, in return, sighed upon his breast and declared that she loved but
one man in all the world--himself.
"Since that night we first met, Lola--you remember it," he said, "my
only thought has been of you."
"Ah, yes," was her reply. "At my aunt's ball in Vienna. I recollect
how the Baron von Karlstadt introduced us, and how you bowed and invited
me to dance. Shall I ever forget that evening, Henri--just over a year
ago."
"And old Gigleux? Is he still quite as troublesome as ever?"
"Just. He has eyes in the back of his head."
"And Mademoiselle Lambert--is she loyal to you?"
"I fear not, alas!" was Lola's reply. "She is paid to spy upon me. At
least that has latterly become my impression. I have wanted to become
her friend, but she is unapproachable."
"Then we must exercise every discretion. On board I shall avoid you
studiously. We can, of course, meet again in Cairo, for it is a big
city, and you will sometimes be free."
"Yes. Till then, adieu, Henri. But," she added, "it will be so hard to
be near you for the next three weeks and never speak."
"It must be. Gigleux is no fool, remember," the man replied.
"I must be getting back. They will miss me," she said wistfully. "How
shall I be able to pass you by dozens of times a day, Henri, maybe sit
down at the same table with you, and betray no sign of recognition? I
really don't know."
"But you must, darling! You must--for both our sakes," he argued, and
then he once again clasped her in his strong arms and smothered her with
his fierce passionate caresses.
Hubert Waldron witnessed it all. He held his breath and bit his lip.
Who could be this mysterious Henri--this secret lover whom Lola had met
by appointment in that far-off, out-of-the-world place?
He recollected that Lola had flirted with him and that she had amused
herself by allowing him to pay her compliments. Yet the existence of
one whom she loved so devotedly in secret was now revealed, and he stood
aghast, filled with chagrin at the unexpected revelation.
The pair, locked in each other's arms, moved slowly forward in his
direction.
She was urging him to allow her to get back, but he was persuading her
to remain a little longer.
"Think of all the long weeks and months we have been parted,
sweetheart!" he was saying. "Besides we must not speak again until we
get to Cairo. I shall remain at the little hotel over to-morrow. But
it would be far too dangerous for us to meet. One or other of the
passengers might discover us."
"Yes," she sighed; "we shall be compelled to exercise the greatest
caution always. All my future depends on the preservation of our
secret."
Waldron slipped from his hiding-place and away behind another tree, just
before the pair passed the spot where he had been standing.
He watched them as they went forth into the light, and at last realised
that the man was tall and slim, though, of course, he could not see his
face.
He watched their parting, a long and tender farewell. The ardent lover
kissed her upon the lips many times, kissed her cheeks, kissed her soft
white hands, and then at last reluctantly released her and stood
watching as she hurried on to the next belt of palms back to the
landing-stage.
Afterwards he strode leisurely on behind her, and was soon lost to view
in the black shadows.
A fortnight--fourteen lazy days of idleness and sunshine--had gone by.
The white double-decked steamer descending the Nile had left modern
Luxor, with its gorgeous Winter Palace Hotel on the site of ancient
Thebes. It had passed the wonderful temple standing upon the bank, and
was steering due northward for Cairo, still a week's journey distant.
In the west a great sea of crimson spread over the clear sky, and shafts
of golden light fell upon the sand-dunes that barred the view in that
direction. Away in the farther distance to the west the steel-like rim
of the utter desert also seemed somewhat softened by that mellow light
which diffused all the face of nature. During all the full hours of the
day that rigid desert ruin, where lay the valley of the tombs of the
kings, had seemed to repel, to warn back, to caution that there lay the
limit beyond which the human being might not go. But in the falling
light it had surrendered, and in its softer appearance it seemed to
promise that it, like destiny and death, would surrender its uttermost
secrets to those whose hearts were brave enough to approach it without
fear.
The tea interval was over, and it was the lazy hour before dinner. Most
of the travellers were in their cabins dressing, for the European ever
clings to the dinner-jacket or evening blouse. On board that small
steamer were men--Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans--whose wealth
could be reckoned at over a hundred millions sterling, men who wore bad
hats and rather shabby clothes, but whose women-kind were always
loud-speaking and bizarre. Truly the winter world of Egypt is a strange
one of moneyed leisure, of reckless extravagance, and of all the modern
vices of this our twentieth-century world.
The white steamer, with its silent, pensive reis squatting in the bows
with his eternal cigarette, ever watchful of the appearance of the broad
grey-green waters, puffed onward around the sudden bend.
To the east, the Arabian Desert--beautiful beyond words, but where, save
in a few narrow oases, Nature forbade the habitancy of man--stretched
away to the Red Sea and far on into Asia. And to the west, frowning now
as though in hatred of the green Nile with its fertility, lay the Libyan
Desert, which, with its great mother the Sahara, held so much of Africa
in its cruel grasp, and which was as unlovely and repelling as its
sister of Arabia was bright and beautiful.
And Egypt--the Egypt of life and fertility, of men and history,
tradition, and of modern travel--lay a green and smiling land between
the two deserts as a human life lies between the two great eternities
before birth and after death; or as a notable writer once put it: as the
moment of the present lies between the lost past and the undiscovered
future.
Waldron had already dressed, and was lying back in a long deck-chair
enjoying a cigarette, and gazing away at the crimson sunset, when a
tall, thin-faced man of thirty passed along the deck. He, too, was in
the conventional dinner-jacket and black cravat, but to his
fellow-travellers he was a mystery, for ever since joining them at Wady,
Haifa he had kept himself much to himself, and hardly spoken to anyone.
His name was Henri Pujalet, and he was from Paris. His father, Henri
Pujalet, the well-known banker of the Rue des Capucines, had died two
years before, leaving to his eldest son his great wealth. That was all
that was known of him.
Only Hubert Waldron knew the truth--the secret of Lola's love.
"Ah, my dear friend!" he cried in his enthusiastic French way as he
approached the Englishman. "Well--how goes it?"
"Very well, thanks," responded the diplomat in French, for truth to tell
he had cultivated the stranger's acquaintance and had watched with
amused curiosity the subtle glances which Lola sometimes cast towards
him.
The secret lover sank into a chair at the diplomat's side and slowly lit
a cigarette.
He was a good-looking--even handsome--man, with refined and regular
features, a smiling, complacent expression, and a small, well-trimmed
moustache. But his cheek-bones were high, and his eyes rather narrowly
set. To-day no young Frenchman--as was the fashion ten years ago--wears
a beard. Time was when the beard was carefully oiled, perfumed, trimmed
and curled. But to-day the fashion in France is a hairless face--as in
America and in England.
Waldron examined his companion for the hundredth time. Yes, he was a
mystery. He had given the name of Pujalet to the steward, but was that
his real name? Was he the son of Pujalet, the dead banker of the Rue
des Capucines?
Old Gigleux often chatted with him, for were they not compatriots? But
the white-headed old fellow apparently held no suspicion that he was his
niece's secret lover who had travelled those many miles from Europe in
order to be near her.
The situation was not without its humours. Of all the persons on board
that gay crowd returning to Cairo to spend New Year's Day, only Hubert
Waldron knew the truth. And as a diplomat he stood by and watched in
silence, aware that the looker-on always sees most of the game.
He had had many amusing chats on deck and in the smoking-room with Henri
Pujalet, whom he had found to be a much more cosmopolitan person than he
had at first imagined. He seemed to know Europe well--even Madrid--for
he spoke of certain dishes at the Lhardy and the excellence of the wines
at the Tournie in the Calle Mayor, of the "Flamenco" at the Gate Nero,
and the smart teas in the ideal room in the Calle de Alcata; all of
which were familiar, of course, to Waldron.
Equally familiar to him was Petersburg, with Cubat's and such-like
resorts; he knew the gay Boulevard Hotel in Bucharest, and the
excellence of its sterlet, the Nazionale and "Father Abraham's" in Rome;
the Hungaria in Budapest, the Adlon in Berlin, the Pera Palace in
Constantinople, as indeed most of the other well-known resorts to which
the constant traveller across Europe naturally drifts at one time or
another.
That Henri Pujalet was a cosmopolitan was perfectly clear to his
companion. Yet he was, as certainly, a man of mystery.
Hubert Waldron, a shrewd observer and a keen investigator of anything
appertaining to mystery, watched him daily, and daily became more and
more interested.
His suspicions were aroused that all was not quite right. Pujalet's
attitude towards Lola was quite remarkable. Not by the slightest glance
or gesture did he give away his secret. To all on board he was to
mademoiselle a stranger, and, moreover, perfectly oblivious to her very
existence.
The two men chatted idly until suddenly the dinner-gong was sounded by a
black-faced, grinning Nubian, who carried it up and down the deck
beating it noisily.
Then he descended to the big white-and-gold saloon, where a few moments
later there assembled a merry, chattering, and laughing crowd.
In the midst of dinner Waldron rose from the table and ascended to the
upper deck and got his handkerchief. As he approached his cabin,
however, he saw someone leave it, and disappear round the stern of the
vessel. The incident instantly impressed itself upon his mind as a
curious one, and in his evening slippers he sped lightly to the end of
the deck and gazed after the receding figure of the fugitive.
It was Henri Pujalet!
Waldron returned instantly to his cabin in wonder why the Frenchman had
intruded there.
As far as he could see nothing had been disturbed. All was in order,
just as he had left it after dressing.
Only one object had been moved--his small, steel, travelling
dispatch-box, enclosed in its green canvas case. This, which had been
upon a shelf, was now lying upon the bed. The green canvas cover had
been unfastened, displaying the patent brass lock by the famous maker.
It had been examined and tampered with. An attempt had, no doubt, been
made to open it, and the person who had made that attempt was none other
than the tall, good-looking man who had so swiftly and silently
descended to the saloon and now, unnoticed, retaken his place at dinner.
"Well," gasped Waldron, taking out his keys and unlocking the steel box
to reassure himself that his private papers were intact, "this is
curious--distinctly curious, to say the least!"