Isaacson had come out to Egypt with no settled plan. The only thing he
knew was that he meant to see Nigel Armine. He had not cabled or written
to let Nigel know he was coming, and now that he was in Cairo he did not
attempt to communicate with the _Loulia_. He would go up the Nile. He
would find the marvellous boat. And one day he would stand upon a brown
bank above her, he would see his friend on the deck, would hail him,
would cross the gangway and walk on board. Nigel would be amazed.
And Mrs. Armine?
Many times on shipboard Isaacson had wondered what look he would
surprise in the eyes of Bella Donna when he held out his hand to her.
Those eyes had already defied him. They had laughed at him ironically.
Once they had almost seemed to menace him. What greeting would they give
him in Egypt?
That the death of Lord Harwich would recall Nigel to England he scarcely
supposed. The death had been sudden. It would be impossible for Nigel to
arrive for the funeral. And Isaacson knew what had been the Harwich view
of the connection with Mrs. Chepstow, what Lady Harwich had thought and
said of it. Zoe Harwich was very outspoken. It was improbable that
Nigel's trip on the Nile would be brought to an end by his brother's
death. Still, it was not impossible. Isaacson realized that, and on the
following day, meeting a London acquaintance in the hotel, a man who
knew everything about everybody, he spoke of the death casually, and
wondered whether Armine would be leaving the Nile for England.
"Not he! Too seedy!" was the reply.
Isaacson remembered the letter he had had in London from his patient at
Luxor.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Sunstroke, they say. He went out at midday without a hat--just the sort
of thing Armine would do--went out diggin' for antiquities, and got a
touch of the sun. I don't think it's serious. But there's no doubt he's
damned seedy."
"D'you know where the boat is--the _Loulia_?"
"Somewhere between Luxor and Assouan, I believe. Armine and his wife are
perfect turtle-doves, you know, always keep to themselves and get right
away from the crowd. One never sees 'em, except by chance. She's playin'
the model wife. Wonder how long it'll last!"
In his laugh there was a sound of cynical incredulity. When he had
strolled away, Isaacson went round to Cook's office, and took a sleeping
compartment in the express train that started for Luxor that evening. He
would see the further wonders of Cairo, the Pyramids, the Sphinx,
Sakkara--later, when he came down the Nile, if he had time; if not, he
would not see them at all. He had not travelled from England to see
sights. That was the truth. He knew it now, despite the longing that
Cairo, the real Cairo of the strange, dimly-lit and brightly-tinted
interiors, of the shrill and weary music, of the painted girls and the
hashish smokers, and of that voice which cried aloud in the mystic hour
the acclamation of the Creator--had waked in his Eastern nature to sink
into the life which his ancestors knew--the life of the Eastern Jews. He
knew what his real purpose had been.
Yet he left Cairo with regret. Starnworth had asked him to come on that
six weeks' desert journey. He longed to do that, too. With this
cessation of work, this abrupt and complete change of life, had come an
almost wild desire for liberty, for adventure. This persistent worker
woke to the great, stretching life outside--outside of his
consulting-room, of the grey sea that ringed the powerful Island,
outside of Europe, a little weary, a little over-civilized. And a voice
that seemed to come from the centre of his soul clamoured for wild
empires, for freedoms unutterable. It was as if the walls of his
consulting-room fell with a noise of the walls of Jericho. And he looked
out upon what he needed, what he had always needed, sub-consciously. But
he could not take it yet.
In the train he slept but little. Early in the morning he was up and
dressed. From his window he saw the sunrise, and, for the first time was
moved by the hard wonder of barren hills in an Eastern land. Those hills
on the left bank of the river, glowing with delicate colours, hills with
dimples that looked like dimples in iron, with outlines that were cruel
and yet romantic, stirred his imagination and made him again regret his
life. Why had he never been here before? Why had he grown to middle age
encompassed by restrictions? A man like Starnworth had a truer
conception of life than he. Even now, at this moment, he was not running
quite free. And then he thought of the _Loulia_. Was he not really a man
in pursuit? Suppose he gave up this pursuit. No one constrained him to
it. He was here with plenty of money, entirely independent. If he chose
to hire a caravan, to start away for the Gold Coast, there was no one to
say him nay. He could go, if he would, forgetting that in the world
there were men who were sick, forgetting everything except that he was
in liberty and in a land where he was at home.
And then he asked himself whether he would have the power to forget that
in the world there were men who were sick. And he remembered the words
in a letter and other spoken words of an acquaintance in an hotel--and
he was not sure.
The Armines, when they arrived at Luxor, had walked to their villa. When
Isaacson arrived he refused all frantic offers of conveyance, and set
out to walk to his hotel. It was the height of the tourist season, and
Luxor was a centre for travellers. They swarmed, even at this early
hour, in the little town. When Isaacson reached the bank of the Nile he
saw a floating wharf with a big steamer moored against it, on which
Cook's tourists were promenading, breakfasting, leaning over the rail,
calling to and bargaining with smiling brown people on the shore. Beyond
were a smaller mail steamer and a long line of dahabeeyahs flying the
Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, flags of France, Spain, and other
countries. Donkeys cantered by, bearing agitated or exultant
sight-seers, and pursued by shouting donkey-boys. Against the western
shore, flat and sandy, and melting into the green of crops which, in
their turn, melted into the sterility that holds the ruins of Thebes,
lay more dahabeeyahs, the high, tapering masts of which cut sharply the
crude, unclouded blue of a sky which announced a radiant day. Already,
at a little after nine, the heat was very great. Isaacson revelled in
it. But he longed to take a seven-thonged whip and drive out the happy
travellers. He longed to be alone with the brown children of the Nile.
On the terrace of the Winter Palace Hotel he saw at once people whom he
knew. Within the bay of sand formed by its crescent stood or strolled
throngs of dragomans, and as he approached, one of them, who looked
compact of cunning and guile, detached himself from a group, came up to
him, saluted, and said:
"Good-morning, sir. You want a dahabeeyah? I get you a very good
dahabeeyah. You go on board to-day--not stay at the hotel. One night you
sleep. When morning-time come, we go away from all these noisy peoples,
we go 'mong the Egyptian peoples. Heeyah"--he threw out a brown hand
with fingers curling backward--"heeyah peoples very vulgar, make much
noise. You not at all happy heeyah, my nice gentleman!"
The rascal had read his thought.
"What's your name?"
"Hassan ben Achmed."
"I'll see you later."
Isaacson went up the steps and into the great hotel.
When he had had a bath and made his toilet, he came out into the sun.
For a moment he stood upon the terrace rejoicing, soul and body, in the
radiance. Then he looked down, and saw the long white teeth of Hassan
displayed in a smile of temptation and understanding. Beyond those teeth
was the river, to which Hassan was inviting him in silence. He looked at
the tapering masts, and--he hesitated. Hassan showed more teeth.
At this moment the lady patient who had written to Isaacson from the
Nile and mentioned Nigel came up with exclamations of wonder and
delight, to engage all his attention. For nearly an hour he strolled
from end to end of the crescent and talked with her. When at last she
slowly vanished in the direction of the temple of Luxor, accompanied by
a villainous-looking dragoman who was "the most intelligent,
simple-minded old dear" in Upper Egypt, Isaacson, with decision,
descended the steps and stood on the sand by Hassan.
"Where's that dahabeeyah you spoke about?" he said. "I'll go and have a
look at her."
That evening, just before sunset he went on board the _Fatma_ as
proprietor.
He had been bargaining steadily for some hours, and felt weary, though
triumphant, as he stood upon the upper deck, with Hassan in attendance,
while the crew poled off from the bank into the golden river. Despite
the earnest solicitations of the lady patient and various acquaintances
staying in Luxor, he had given the order to remove to the western bank
of the Nile. There he could be at peace.
Friends of his cried out adieux from the road in front of the shops and
the great hotel. Unknown donkey-boys saluted. Tourists stood at gaze. He
answered and looked back. But already a new feeling was stealing over
him; already he was forgetting the turmoil of Luxor. The Reis stood on
the raised platform in the stern, still as a figure of bronze, with the
gigantic helm in his hand. The huge sail hung limp from the mast. Then
there came a puff of wind. Slowly the shore receded. Slowly the _Fatma_
crept over the wrinkled gold of the river towards the unwrinkled gold of
the west. And Isaacson stood there, alone among his Egyptians, and saw
his first sunset on the Nile. Over the gold from Thebes came boats going
to the place he had left. And the boatmen sang the deep and drowsy chant
that set the time for the oars. Mrs. Armine had often heard it. Now
Isaacson heard it, and he thought of the beating pulse in a certain
symphony to which he had listened with Nigel, and of the beating pulse
of life; and he thought, too, of the destinies of men that often seem so
fatal. And he sank down in the magical wonder of this old and golden
world.
"Don't tie up near any other dahabeeyah."
"No, gentlemans," said Hassan.
Again the crew got out their poles. Two men stripped, went overboard
with a rope, and, running along the shore, towed the _Fatma_ up stream
against the tide till she came to a lonely place where two men were
vehemently working a shaduf. There they tied up for the night.
The gold was fading. Less brilliant, but deeper now, was the dream of
river and shore, of the groves of palms and the mountains. Here and
there, far off, a window, touched by a dying ray of light, glittered out
of the softened dusk. Isaacson leaned over the rail. This evening, after
his long months of perpetual work in a house in London, deprived of all
real light, he felt like a man taken by the hand and led into Heaven.
Behind him the naked fellahin, unmindful of his presence, cried aloud in
the fading gold.
For a long while he stood there without moving. His eyes were attracted,
were held, by a white house across the water. It stood alone, and the
river flowed in a delicate curve before it by a low tangle of trees or
bushes. The windows of this house gleamed fiercely as restless jewels.
At last he lifted himself up from the rail.
"Who lives in that house?" he asked of Hassan.
"An English lord, sah. My Lord Arminigel."
"What house is it? What's the name?"
"The Villa Androud, my kind gentlemans."
"The Villa Androud!"
So that was where Armine had gone for his honeymoon with Bella Donna!
The windows glittered like the jewels many men had given to her.
Night fell. The song of the fellahin failed. The stars came out. Just
where the _Loulia_ had lain the _Fatma_ lay. And under the stars, on
deck, Isaacson dined alone. To-morrow at dawn he would start on his
voyage up river. He would follow where the _Loulia_ had gone. When
dinner was finished, he sent Hassan away, and strolled about on the deck
smoking his cigar. Through the tender darkness of the exquisite night
the lights of Luxor shone, and from somewhere below them came a faint
but barbaric sound of native music.
To-morrow he would follow where the _Loulia_ had gone.
The lady patient that morning had been very communicative. One of her
chief joys in life was gossip. Her joy in gossip was second only to her
joy in poor health. And she had told her beloved doctor "all the news."
The news of the Armine _menage_ was that Nigel Armine had got sunstroke
in Thebes and been "too ill for words," and that the _Loulia_, after a
short stay near Luxor, had gone on up the Nile, and was now supposed to
be not far from the temple of Edfou. Not a soul had been able to explore
the marvellous boat. Only a young American doctor, very susceptible
indeed to female charm, had been permitted to set foot on her decks. He
had diagnosed "sunstroke," had prescribed for Nigel Armine, and had come
away "positively raving" about Mrs. Armine--"silly fellow." Isaacson
would have liked a word with him, but he had gone to Assouan.
On the lower deck the boatmen began to sing.
Isaacson paced to and fro. The gentle and monotonous exercise, now
accompanied by monotonous though ungentle music, seemed to assist the
movement of his thought. When he left the garrulous lady patient, he
might have gone to the post-office and telegraphed to the _Loulia_. It
was possible to telegraph to Edfou. Since he intended to leave Luxor and
sail up the Nile, surely the natural thing to do was to let his friend
know of his coming. Why had he not done the natural thing? Some instinct
had advised him against the completely straightforward action. If Nigel
had been alone on the _Loulia_ the telegram would have been sent. That
Isaacson knew. But Nigel was not alone. A spy was with him, she who had
come to spy out the land when she had come to Cleveland Square. Perhaps
it was very absurd, but the remembrance of Bella Donna prevented
Isaacson now from announcing his presence on the Nile. He was resolved
to come to her as she had once come to him. She had appeared in
Cleveland Square carrying her secret reason with her. He would appear in
the shadow of the temple of Horus. And his secret reason? Perhaps he had
none. He was a man who was often led by instinct.
And he trusted very much in his instinctive mistrust of Bella Donna.
The _Fatma_ was no marvellous boat like the _Loulia_. She was small,
poorly furnished, devoid of luxury, and not even very comfortable! That
night Isaacson lay on a mattress so thin that he felt the board beneath
it. The water gurgled close to him against the vessel's side. It seemed
to have several voices, which were holding secret converse together in
the great stillness of the night. For long he lay awake in the
darkness. How different this darkness seemed from that other darkness of
London! He thought of the great temples so near him, of the tombs of the
Kings, of all those wonders to see which men travelled from the ends of
the earth. And he was sailing at dawn, he who had seen nothing! It
seemed a mad thing to do. His friends had been openly amazed when he had
been forced to tell them of his immediate departure. And he wanted, he
longed, to see the wonders that were so near him in the night; Karnak
with its pylons, its halls, its statues; the Colossi sitting side by
side in their plain, with the springing crops about their feet; the
fallen King in the Ramesseum, and that sad King who gazes for ever into
the void beneath the mountain.
He longed to see these things, and many others that were near him in the
night.
But he longed still more to look for a moment into the eyes of a woman,
to take the hand and gaze at the face of a man. And he was glad when, at
dawn, he heard the movement of naked feet and the murmur of voices above
his head, when, presently, the dahabeeyah shivered and swayed, and the
Nile water spoke in a new and more ardent way as it held her in its
embrace.
He was glad, for he knew he was going towards Edfou.