Amidst the wildest clamour the rowing-boat was launched, and two
red-jerseyed native sailors took the oars, while a third, shouting and
gesticulating, stood at the tiller holding up a hurricane-lamp. Just as
they pushed off, Professor Hyley, carrying another lantern, tumbled into
the stern; and, in the unreasoning excitement of the moment, called out
"Mr. Helsingham, Mr. Helsingham! Hi, hi! Mr. Helsingham!" in a piping
voice which sounded through the darkness like that of a lost soul.
The pandemonium upon the steamer was appalling. The jabbering native
sailors ran aimlessly to and fro, flinging ropes and buoys into the
river from the vessel's stern; while the Egyptian captain, completely
losing his head, rang and bawled orders down to the engine-room, as a
result of which the paddle-wheels churned up the water, now this way,
now that. Lady Smith-Evered and Mr. Bindane leant over the rail,
shouting instructions to Professor Hyley as the boat dropped into the
distance.
Muriel and Kate Bindane stood together in agonized silence. There was
nothing to be done; for there was not a second rowing-boat, nor were
there any available lamps or buoys. Their eyes were fixed upon the two
points of light drifting astern, and on the illuminated figures of the
searchers. And now the misshapen moon, in its last quarter, crept out
from behind the horizon, as though curious to know what all the pother
was about, but too disdainful to throw any light upon the scene.
At length there were renewed shouts from the boat, and much splashing of
the oars; and presently it was apparent that the men were lifting
something out of the ink-black water. A few minutes of horrible suspense
ensued as the searchers returned; and at last, in a dazed condition,
Muriel watched them raise the limp, dripping form out of the boat and
lay it on the deck.
Mr. Bindane's servant, Dixon, knew something about the method of
resuscitation to be employed in such cases; and, with the aid of Muriel
and Professor Hyley, the sodden clothes were removed from the upper part
of the prostrate figure, and the bare white arms were worked to and fro.
Brandy in a teaspoon was forced between the blue lips by Kate Bindane,
who sent her helpless and apparently callous husband off with the
weeping Lady Smith-Evered to fetch blankets and the one hot-water bottle
which chanced to be available.
Their efforts, however, were all in vain. With the tears flowing from
her eyes, Muriel rose from the puddle of water in which she had been
kneeling, and stood clinging to Kate's arm.
"He's dead," she sobbed. "He's been dead all the time;" and a shudder
almost of repulsion shook her.
She dried her tears and tried hard to pull herself together: she felt
that this undefined feeling of disgust was unworthy of any woman, and
was altogether despicable in one who had been so lately clasped in
Rupert's arms. She wanted to run away, and that primitive instinct which
produces in the mind the nameless horror of a dead body was strong upon
her. Yet, bracing herself, she resisted the sensation of nausea, and
stood staring down at the prostrate figure before her, vividly
illuminated in the glare of the electric light.
His mouth, from which the water oozed, was slightly open, and a pale,
swollen tongue protruded somewhat from between his lips. His eyes were
closed, and wet strands of dark hair were plastered over his forehead.
His bare neck and shoulders looked thin and poor; and damp wisps of hair
covered his chest. The soaked, black trousers clung to his legs; and his
ill-shapen toes, from which the socks and shoes had been removed, were
ghastly in their greenish whiteness as they rested upon the hot-water
bottle.
Suddenly she swayed, and the lights seemed to grow dim. She heard Kate
Bindane call out sharply for the brandy, and she was dimly conscious
that she was being led away by her maid, Ada. Her perceptions, however,
were not clear again until she aroused herself to find that she was
lying upon her bed in her cabin, and that Mr. Bindane was standing at
the door, staring down at her with his mouth open.
She sat up quickly. "Did I faint?" she said, as the horror of
remembrance came upon her once more.
"No," he answered. "You were only a bit giddy. You must try to sleep:
we're all going to try to. We shall be back in Cairo before sunrise."
"Where is he?" she asked, pressing her fingers to her pale face.
"On the sofa at the end of the deck," he said.
She sprang to her feet. "No, no!" she cried. "Not there--please not
there!"
She buried her face in her hands; and Benifett Bindane, disliking
hysteria, hurried away to the saloon, where he played Patience by
himself until the small hours; while his wife, Kate, wedging herself
into Muriel's narrow bed, comforted her friend until dozing sleep fell
upon them.
The next two or three days were like a nightmare. An impenetrable gloom
seemed to rest upon the Residency; and, although the body lay in the
mortuary of a neighbouring hospital, it was as though the presence of
death were actually in the house.
The funeral came almost as a relief; and when the imposing ceremony was
at an end, she felt as though the weight were beginning to be lifted
from her heart. For the first time since the tragedy she was able to
speak of it with calmness.
"You know, father dear," she said, "Rupert and I came to mean a very
great deal to one another in these few weeks that we've been together."
He glanced at her timidly, and patted her hand.
"Yes," he answered, "I have eyes, Muriel."
She turned and looked at him with a little smile of confidence. "We were
going to be married," she said.
He started violently. "What!" he exclaimed. "Well, well, we must see
about that."
"It's no good seeing about it, father," she corrected him, feeling an
hysterical desire to laugh; "he's dead."
"The poor boy, the poor boy!" he murmured. "Such a capital fellow."
"It was just after he had proposed to me that he fell overboard," she
told him.
"Dear me, dear me!" he sighed. "And you had accepted him? I suppose the
shock.... How very, very sad!--He just fell backwards."
Awkwardly, but with great tenderness, he put his arm about her. "You
must forget all about it," he whispered. "You must have a good time."
"It was so ghastly," she said. "You see, when he asked me to be his
wife, I didn't say 'yes.'"
"Of course not, of course not," he murmured. "Very proper, I'm sure."
"But he thought I was only playing with him," she faltered. "He was so
angry, so hurt. And then the paddle-wheel started with a jerk, and he
overbalanced."
"Ah, my dear," he answered, "the course of true love never runs
smoothly. An ancient saw, but a very true one! But you are young: you
will soon get over it. You must throw yourself into your duties as
hostess at the Residency; and, in the first place, I want you to help me
in a little scheme I have in mind."
Muriel guessed what was coming, and her feelings were peculiarly
diversified.
"I want to persuade Daniel Lane to accept some official position," he
said. "Of course I can't offer him the mere Oriental Secretaryship which
poor dear Rupert has left vacant; but I think its scope and importance
could be greatly extended, amplified, and he might be tempted."
"I doubt it," Muriel replied. She did not know quite what to say.
"I shall write to him at once," Lord Blair went on, nodding archly at
her. "I shall say how whole-heartedly you second my proposal."
Muriel stiffened. "O, no, _please_," she answered, quickly, and the
colour mounted to her face. "Please leave me out of it; Mr. Lane and I
have nothing in common. I hardly know him, and much of what I do know I
dislike."
Her father's face fell. There is no telling how far his scheming mind
had advanced into the future, nor what plans he was forming for the
well-being of his only child. It may only be stated with certainty that
he had a very great admiration for Daniel, and that he was not blind to
the fact that the object of this admiration was heir-presumptive to a
man who, by common report, was drinking himself to death.
To Muriel, however, the prospect of having the masterful Mr. Lane
actually on the premises was disturbing in the extreme, and, during the
ensuing days, added not a little to her mental distress.
She greatly missed Rupert's entertaining company; and although, as the
days passed, she realized that his death was not as shattering a blow to
her as she had thought, the remembrance of their brief romance often
brought the tears to her eyes. Yet even as she wiped them away she was
conscious that her sorrows were aroused rather by the tragedy itself
than by her own heart's desolation. It is true that her emotions had
been deeply stirred by his passion; but gradually the fires, lighted for
so brief a moment, died down, and she was obliged to admit that her
heart was not broken.
But if the romantic effect of the sad affair was proved in these few
days to be less severe than she had at first supposed, there was another
aspect of the matter which had a very profound bearing upon her mental
attitude. The sudden termination of Rupert's career had set her thinking
about life in a way that she had never thought before. If death were
always so near at hand, if so simple an accident so quickly put out the
little lamp of existence, ought one not to concentrate all the forces of
the human constitution upon the enjoyment of each passing hour?
She stood off from herself as an artist stands back from his picture,
and she saw that she was but a shadow amongst shadows, a speck of vapour
passing across time's fixed stare, having no substance of which one
could say, "this at least will remain." Today she was here; tomorrow she
would be dissolved and gone.
To Kate Bindane she confessed all that had occurred on that fatal night.
"I don't want to be romantic," she told her. "I don't want to make more
of the thing than there was really in it. But his death means more to me
than it does to any of you others. I can't forget the sight of the soles
of his shoes disappearing into that black water. It's as though I'd seen
Death himself swallow him up. I had always thought of Death as a sort of
unknown country where one goes to; but in this case I saw it come for
him and swallow him. I saw it as an ink-black monster; it snapped him
up, and spit out the limp shell of him, but kept the essence of him in
its stomach. And it's waiting to snap up you and me. It's close at hand,
always close at hand...."
She shuddered as she spoke; and her friend, putting her strong arm
around her, found difficulty in soothing her.
"Well, perhaps," she replied, "it was an act of Providence to save you
from a mistaken marriage."
"O, but he loved me," said Muriel, "and I should have come to love him
entirely. He was so sweet, so good-natured."
"Perhaps there's something better in store for you, old girl."
Muriel shook her head. "No," she answered, "there's nothing much but
Death for any of us. It all comes to that in the end: it all leads just
to Death."
"Well, then, let's eat, drink, and be merry," said her friend.
"Yes," Muriel replied, with conviction. "That's what I'm going to do.
Omar Khayyam was right: I've been reading him again."
"He was a wise old bird," Kate Bindane commented. "Wasn't he the fellow
who said something about a bottle of claret and a hunk of
bread-and-butter in the desert? I've always thought it a fine conception
of bliss."
Muriel clasped her hands together, and looked up with youthful fervour.
"Yes," she replied, "and he said 'Ah, make the most of what we yet may
spend, Before we too into the dust descend,' and 'Ah, fill the
cup:--what boots it to repeat how time is slipping underneath our
feet.'"
"Yes," said Kate, "I always remember that line by thinking of boots and
slippers and feet."
Muriel was speaking with too much earnestness to give heed to her
friend's lack of poetic reverence. "Life's so short," she went on, "that
I'm going to make the most of it. I'm going to have my fling, Kate. I'm
going to be merry."
"Right-o!" said Kate. "I'm with you, old bean."