Upon a hard and habitual worker an unexpected holiday sometimes has a
weakening rather than a strengthening effect, in the first days of it.
Later may come from it vitality and a renewal of energy. Just at first
there steals over the worker a curious lassitude. Parts of him seem to
lie down and sleep. Other parts of him are dreaming.
So it was now with Meyer Isaacson.
He got up from his Spartan bed feeling alert and animated. He went up on
deck full of curiosity and expectation. But as the day wore on, the long
day of golden sunshine, the dream of the Nile took him slowly, quietly,
to its breast. Strange were the empty hours to this man whose hours
were generally so full. And the solitude was strange. For he sent Hassan
away, and sat alone on the upper deck--alone save for the Reis, who,
like a statue, stood behind him holding the mighty helm.
The _Fatma_ travelled slowly, crept upon the greenish-brown water almost
with the deliberation of some monstrous water-insect. For she journeyed
against the tide, and as yet there was little wind, though what there
was blew from the north. The crew had to work hard in the burning
sun-rays, going naked upon the bank and straining at the tow-rope.
Isaacson sat in a folding chair and watched their toil. For years he had
not known the sensation of watching in absolute idleness the strenuous
exertion of others. Those exertions emphasized his inertia, in which
presently the mind began to take part with the body. The Nile is
exquisitely monotonous. He was coming under its spell. Far off and near,
from the western and eastern banks of the river, he heard almost
perpetually the creaking song of the sakeeyas, the water-wheels turned
by oxen. They made the leit motiv of this wonderful, idle life. Antique
and drowsy, with a plaintive drowsiness, was their continual music,
which very gradually takes possession of the lonely voyager's soul. The
shaduf men, in their long lines leading the eyes towards the south, sang
to the almost brazen sky. And heat reigned over all.
Was this pursuit? Where was the _Loulia?_ To what secret place had she
crept against the repelling tide? It began to seem to Isaacson that he
scarcely cared to know. He was forgetting his reason for coming to
Egypt. He was forgetting his friend, his enemy; he was forgetting
everything. The heat increased. The puffs of wind died down. Towards
noon the Reis tied up, that the sweating crew might rest.
A table was laid on deck, and Isaacson lunched under an awning. When he
had finished and the Egyptian waiter had cleared away, Hassan came to
stand beside his master and entertain him with conversation.
"Are there many orange plantations on the Nile?" asked Isaacson,
presently, looking towards the bank, which was broken just here and
showed a vista of trees.
Hassan spoke of Mahmoud Baroudi. Once again Isaacson heard of him, and
now of his almost legendary wealth. Then came a flood of gossip in
pigeon-English. Hamza was presently mentioned, and Isaacson learnt of
Hamza's pilgrimage to Mecca with Mahmoud Baroudi, and of his present
service with "my Lord Arminigel" upon the _Loulia_. Isaacson did not say
that he knew "my Lord." He kept his counsel, and he listened, till at
last Hassan's volubility seemed exhausted. The crew were sleeping now.
There was no prospect of immediate departure, and, to create a
diversion, Hassan suggested a walk through the orange gardens to the
house they guarded closely.
Lazily Isaacson agreed. He and the guide crossed the gangway, and soon
disappeared into the Villa of the Night of Gold.
When the heat grew less, as the day was declining, once more the _Fatma_
crept slowly on her way. She drew ever towards the south with the
deliberation of a water-insect which yet had a purpose that kept it on
its journey.
She rounded a bend of the Nile. She disappeared.
And all along the Nile the sakeeyahs lifted up their old and melancholy
song. And the lines of bending and calling brown men led the eyes
towards the south.