Isaacson walked back alone into the temple. But the spell of the Nile
was broken. He had been rudely awaked from his dream, and so thoroughly
awaked that his dream was already as if it had never been. He was once
more the man he normally was in London--a man intensely, Jewishly alert,
a man with a doctor's mind. In every great physician there is hidden a
great detective. It was a detective who now walked alone in the temple
of Edfou, who penetrated presently once more to the sombre sanctuary,
and who stayed there for a long time, standing before the granite shrine
of the God, listening mentally in the absolute silence to the sound of
an ugly voice.
When the heat of noon approached, Isaacson went back to the _Fatma_. He
did not know at all how long a time had passed since Mrs. Armine had
left him, and when he came on board, he enquired of Hassan whether any
message had come for him, any note from the dahabeeyah that lay over
there to the south of them, drowned in the quivering gold.
"No, my nice gentlemans," was the reply, accompanied by a glance of
intense curiosity.
Questions immediately followed.
"That boat is the _Loulia_," said Isaacson, impatiently, pointing up
river.
"Of course, I know that, my gentlemans."
Hassan's voice sounded full of an almost contemptuous pity.
"Well, I know the people on board of her. They--one of them is a friend
of mine. That'll do. You can go to the lower deck."
Isaacson began to pace up and down. He pushed back the deck chairs to
the rail in order to have more room for movement. Although the heat was
becoming intense, and despite the marvellous dryness of the atmosphere,
perspiration broke out on his forehead and cheeks, he could not cease
from walking. Once he thought with amazement of his long and almost
complete inertia since he had left Luxor. How could he have remained
sunk in a chair for hours and hours, staring at the moving water and at
the monotonous banks of the Nile? Close to the _Fatma_ two shaduf men
were singing and bending, singing and bending. And had the shaduf songs
lulled him? Had they pushed him towards his dream? Now, as he listened
to the brown men singing, he heard nothing but violence in their voices.
And in their rhythmical movements only violence was expressed to him.
When lunch came, he ate it hastily, without noticing what he was eating.
Soon after he had finished, coffee was brought, not by the waiter, but
by Hassan, who could no longer suppress another demonstration of
curiosity.
"No message him comin', my nice gentlemans."
He stood gazing at his master.
"No?" said Isaacson, with a forced carelessness.
"All the men bin sleepin', the Reis him ready to start. We stop by the
_Loulia_, and we take the message ourselfs."
"No. I'm not going to start at present. It's too hot."
Hassan showed his long teeth, which looked like the teeth of an animal.
Isaacson knew a protest was coming.
"I'll give the order when I'm ready to start. Go below to my cabin--in
the chair by the bed there's a field-glass"--he imitated the action of
lifting up to the eyes, and looking through, a glass--"just bring it up
to me, will you?"
Hassan vanished, and returned with the glass.
"That'll do."
Hassan waited.
"You can go now."
Slowly Hassan went. Not only his face but his whole body looked the prey
of an almost venomous sulkiness. Isaacson picked up the glass, put it to
his eyes, and stared up river. He saw faintly a blurred vision. Hassan
had altered the focus. The sudden gust of irritation which shook
Isaacson revealed him to himself. As his fingers quickly readjusted the
glass to suit his eyesight, he stood astonished at the impetuosity of
his mind. But in a moment the astonishment was gone. He was but a
gazer, entirely concentrated in watchfulness, sunk as it were in
searching.
The glass was a very powerful one, and of course Isaacson knew it;
nevertheless, he was surprised by the apparent nearness of the _Loulia_
as he looked. He could appreciate the beauty of her lines, distinguish
her colour, the milky white picked out with gold. He could see two flags
flying, one at her mast-head, one in the stern of her; the awning that
concealed the upper deck. Yes, he could see all that.
He slightly lowered the glass. Now he was looking straight at the
balcony that bayed out from the chamber of the faskeeyeh. There was an
awning above it, but the sides were not closed in. As he looked, he saw
a figure, like a doll, moving upon the balcony close to the rail. Was it
Mrs. Armine? Was it his friend, the man who was sick? He gazed with such
intensity that he felt as if he were making a severe physical effort.
His eyes began to ache. His eyelids tickled. He rubbed his eyes,
blinked, put up the glasses, and looked again.
This time he saw a small boat detach itself from the side of the
_Loulia_, creep upon the river almost imperceptibly. The doll was still
moving by the rail. Then, as the boat dropped down the river, coming
towards Isaacson, it ceased to move.
Isaacson laid down the glass. As he did so, he saw the crafty eyes of
Hassan watching him from the lower deck. He longed to give Hassan a
knock-down blow, but he pretended not to have seen him.
He sat down on a deck-chair, out of range of Hassan's eyes, and waited
for the coming of the messenger of Bella Donna.
Although his detective's mind had told him what the message must be,
something within him, some other part of him, strove to contradict the
foreknowledge of the detective, to protest that till the message was
actually in his hands he could know nothing about it. This protesting
something was that part of a man which is driven into activity by his
secret and strong desire, a desire which his instinct for the naked
truth of things may declare to be vain, but which, nevertheless, will
not consent to lie idle.
He secretly longed for the message to be what he secretly knew it would
not be.
At last he heard the plash of oars quite near to the _Fatma_ and deep
voices of men chanting, almost muttering, a monotonous song that set the
time for the oars. And although it rose up to him out of a golden world,
it was like a chant of doom.
He did not move, he did not look over the side. The chant died away, the
plash of the oars was hushed. There was a slight impact. Then guttural
voices spoke together.
A minute later Hassan came up the companion, carrying a letter in his
curling dark fingers.
"The message him comin', him heeyah!"
Isaacson took the letter.
"You needn't stay."
Hassan did not move.
"I waitin' for--"
"Go away!"
Isaacson had never before spoken so roughly, so almost ferociously to a
dependant. When Hassan had gone, ferociously Isaacson opened the letter.
It was not very long, and his eyes seized every word of it almost at a
glance--seized every word and conveyed to his brain the knowledge,
undesired by him, that the detective had been right.
"Loulia, Nile, Wednesday.
"Dear Doctor,
"I find it is better not. When I came on board again I found Nigel
reading over one of the notices of Harwich's death. I had begged
him to put them away, and not to brood over the inevitable. (We
only got the papers giving an account of Harwich yesterday.) But
being so seedy, poor boy, I suppose he naturally turns to things
that deepen depression. I ought not to have left him. But he
insisted on my taking a ride and visiting the temple, which I had
never been in before. I persuaded him to put away the papers, and
am devoting myself to cheering him up. We play cards together, and
I make music, and I read aloud to him. The great thing is--now that
he has taken a decided turn for the better--not to excite him in
any way. Now you, dear doctor--you mustn't mind my saying it--are
rather exciting. You have so much mentality yourself that you stir
up one's mind. I have always noticed that. Fond as he is of you,
just at this moment I fear you would exhaust Nigel. He gets hot and
excited so easily since the sunstroke. So _please pass us by
without a call_, and do be kind and wait for us at Assouan. In a
very few days we shall be able to receive you, and then, when he is
a little stronger, you can be of the greatest help to Nigel. Not as
a doctor--you see we have one, and mustn't leave him; _medical
etiquette_, you know!--but as a friend. It is so delightful to feel
you will be at Assouan. If you are the least anxious about your
friend, when you get to Assouan ask for Doctor Baring Hartley, if
you like, Cataract Hotel. He will set your mind at rest, as he has
set mine. It is only a question of keeping very quiet and getting
up strength.
"Sincerely yours,
"Ruby Armine.
"P.S. Don't let your men make too much noise when passing us. Nigel
sleeps at odd times. Perhaps wiser to pole up along the opposite
bank."
* * * * *
Yes, the detective had been right--of course.
Isaacson read the letter again, and this time slowly. The handwriting
was large, clear, and determined, but here and there it seemed to waver,
a word turned down. He fancied he detected signs of--
He read the postscript four times. If the handwriting had ever wavered,
it had recovered itself in the postscript. As he gazed at it, he felt as
if he were looking at a proclamation.
He heard a sound, almost as if a soft-footed animal were padding towards
him.
"My gentlemans, the Noobian peoples waitin' for what you say to the nice
lady."
Isaacson got up and looked over the rail.
Below lay a white felucca containing two sailors, splendidly handsome
black men, who were squatting on their haunches and smoking cigarettes.
In the stern of the boat, behind a comfortable seat with a back, was
Hamza, praying. As Isaacson looked down, the sailors saluted. But Hamza
did not see him. Hamza bowed down his forehead to the wood, raised
himself up, holding his hands to his legs, and prostrated himself again.
For a moment Isaacson watched him, absorbed.
"Hamza very good donkey-boy, always prayin'."
It was Hassan's eternal voice. Isaacson jerked himself up from the rail.
"Ask if the lady expected an answer," he said. "They don't speak
English, I suppose?"
"No, my gentlemans."
He spoke in Arabic. A sailor replied. Hamza always prayed.
"The lady him say p'raps you writin' somethin'."
"Very well."
Isaacson sat down, took a pen and paper. But what should be his answer?
He read Mrs. Armine's letter again. She was Nigel's wife, mistress of
Nigel's dahabeeyah. It was impossible, therefore, for him to insist on
going on board, not merely without an invitation, but having been
requested not to come. And yet, had she told Nigel his friend was in
Egypt? Apparently not. She did not say she had or she had not. But the
detective felt certain she had held her peace. Well, the sailors were
waiting, and even that bronze Hamza could not pray for ever.
Isaacson dipped the pen in the ink, and wrote.
"That's for the lady," he said, giving the note to Hassan.
As Hassan went down the stairs, holding up his djelabieh, Isaacson got
up and looked once more over the rail. His eyes met the eyes of Hamza.
But Hamza did not salute him. Isaacson was not even certain that Hamza
saw him. The sailors threw away the ends of their cigarettes. They bent
to the oars. The boat shot out into the gold. And once more Isaacson
heard the murmuring chant that suggested doom. It diminished, it
dwindled, it died utterly away. And always he leant upon the rail, and
he watched the creeping felucca, and he wished that he were in it, going
to see his friend.
What was he going to do?
Again he began to pace the deck. It was not very far to Assouan--Gebel
Silsile, Kom Ombos, then Assouan. It was some hundred and ten
kilometres. The steamers did it in thirteen hours. But the _Fatma_,
going always against the stream, would take a much longer time. At
Assouan he could seek out this man, Baring Hartley.
But she had suggested that!
How entirely he distrusted this woman!
Mrs. Armine and he were linked by their dislike. He had known they might
be when he met her in London. To-day he knew that they were. It seemed
to him that he read her with an ease and a certainty that were not
natural. And he knew that with equal ease and certainty she read him.
Their dislike was as a sheet of flawless glass through which each looked
upon the other.
He picked up the field-glass again, and held it to his eyes.
The felucca was close to the _Loulia_ now. And the doll upon the balcony
was once more moving by the rail.
He was certain this doll was Mrs. Armine, and that she was restless for
his answer.
The tiny boat joined the dahabeeyah, seemed to become one with it. The
doll moved and disappeared. Isaacson put down the glass.
In his note to Mrs. Armine, the note she was reading at that moment, he
had politely accepted her decision, and written that he would look out
for them at Assouan. He had written nothing about Doctor Hartley,
nothing in answer to her postscript. His note had been shorter than
hers, rather careless and perfunctory. He had intended, when he was
writing it, to convey to her the impression that the whole matter was a
trifle and that he took it lightly. But he, too, had put his postscript.
And this was it:
"P.S. I look forward to a real acquaintance with you at Assouan."
And now, if he gave the word to the Reis to untie, to pole off, to get
out the huge oars, and to cross to the western bank of the river! Soon
they would be level with the _Loulia_. A little later the _Loulia_ would
lie behind them. A little later still, and she would be out of their
sight.
"God knows when they'll be at Assouan!"
Isaacson found himself saying that. And he felt as if, as soon as the
_Fatma_ rounded the bend of the Nile and crept out of sight on her slow
way southwards, the _Loulia_ would untie and drop down towards the
north. He felt it? He knew it as if he had seen it happen.
"Hassan!"
When Hassan answered, Isaacson bade him tell the Reis that he and his
men could rest all the afternoon.
"I'm going to Edfou again. I shall probably spend some hours in the
temple."
"Him very fine temple."
"Yes. I shall go alone and on foot."
A few minutes later he set out. He gained the temple, and stayed in it a
long time. When he returned to the _Fatma_, the afternoon was waning. In
the ethereal distance the _Loulia_ still lay motionless.
"We goin' now?" asked Hassan.
Isaacson shook his head.
"We goin' to-night?"
"I'll tell you when I want to go. You needn't keep asking me questions."
The dragoman was getting terribly on Isaacson's nerves. For a moment
Isaacson thought of dismissing him there and then, paying him handsomely
and sending him ashore now, on the instant. The impulse was strong, but
he resisted it. The fellow might possibly be useful. Isaacson looked at
him meditatively and searchingly.
"What can I doin' for my gentlemans?"
"Nothing, except hold your tongue."
Hassan retired indignantly.
While he had looked at Hassan, Isaacson had considered a proposition and
rejected it. He had thought of sending the dragoman with a note to the
_Loulia_. It would be simple enough to invent an excuse for the note.
Hassan might see Nigel--would see Nigel, if a hint were given him to do
so. But he would no doubt also see Mrs. Armine; and--if Isaacson's
instinct were not utterly astray in a wilderness of absurdity and
error--she would make more use of Hassan than he ever could. The
dragoman's face bore the sign-manual of treachery stamped upon it. And
Mrs. Armine would be more clever in using treachery than Isaacson. He
appreciated her talent at its full value.
While he had been in the temple of Edfou he had come to a conclusion
with himself. Entirely alone in the semi-darkness of the most perfect
building, and the most perfectly calm building, that he had ever
entered, he had known his own calm and what his instinct told him in it.
Had he not spent those hours in Edfou, possibly he might have denied the
insistent voice of his instinct. Now he would heed that voice, certain
that it was no unreasonable ear that was listening.
He saw the tapering mast of the _Loulia_ against the thin, magical gold
of the sky at sunset. He saw it against the even more magical primrose,
pale green, soft red, of the after-glow. He saw it black as ink in the
livid spasm of light that the falling night struck away from the river,
the land, the sky. And then he saw it no more.
His sailors began to sing a song of the Nile, sitting in a circle around
a bowl that had been passed from hand to hand. He dined quickly.
Hassan came to ask if he might go ashore. He had friends in the native
village, and wished to see them. Isaacson told him to go. A minute
later, with a swish of skirts, the tall figure vanished over the gangway
and up the bank.
The sailors went on singing, throwing back their heads, swaying them,
rocking gently to and fro and from side to side. They were happy and
intent.
Isaacson let five minutes go by; then he followed Hassan's example. He
crossed the gangway, climbed the bank, and stood still on the flat
ground which dominated the river.
The night was warm, almost lusciously warm, and very still. The sky was
absolutely clear, but there was no moon, and the river, the flats, the
two ranges of mountains that keep the Nile, were possessed by a gentle
darkness. As Isaacson stood there, he saw the lights on the _Fatma_
gleaming, he heard the sad and tempestuous singing of his men, and the
barking of dogs on hidden houses keeping guard against imagined
intruders. When he looked at the lights of the _Fatma_, he realized how
the boat stood to him for home. He felt almost desolate in leaving her
to adventure forth in the night.
But he turned southwards and looked up-river. Far away--so it seemed,
now the night was come--isolated in the darkness, was a pattern of
lights. And high above them, apparently hung in air, there was a blue
jewel. Isaacson knew it for a lamp fixed against the mast of the
_Loulia_. He put his hand down to his hip-pocket. Yes, his revolver was
safely there. He lit a cigar, then, moved by an after-thought, threw it
away. Its tip hissed as it struck the river. He looked at that blue
jewel, at the diaper of yellow below it, and he set out upon his
nocturnal journey.
At first he walked very slowly and cautiously. But soon his eyes, which
were exceptionally strong-sighted, became accustomed to the gloom, and
he could see his way without difficulty. Now and then he looked back,
rather as a man going into a tunnel on foot may look back to the orifice
which shows the light of day. He looked back to his home. And each time
it seemed to have receded from him. And at last he felt he was homeless.
Then he looked back no more, but always forward to the pattern of light
that marked where the _Loulia_ lay. And then--why was that?--he felt
more homeless still. Perhaps he was possessed by the consciousness of
moving towards an enemy. Men feel very differently in darkness and in
light. And in darkness their thought of an individual sometimes assumes
strange contours. Now Isaacson's imagination awoke, and led his mind
down paths that were dim and eerie. The blue jewel that hung in air
seemed like the cruel eye of a beautiful woman that was watching him as
he walked. He felt as if Bella Donna had mounted upon a tower to spy out
his progress in the night. With this fancy he played a sort of horrible
game, until deep in his mind a conviction grew that Mrs. Armine had
actually somehow divined his approach. How? Women have the strangest
intuitions. They know things that--to speak by the card--they cannot
know.
Surely Bella Donna was upon her tower.
He stopped at the edge of a field of doura. What was the use of going
further?
He looked to the north, then turned and looked to the south, comparing
the two distances that lay between him and his own boat, between him and
the _Loulia_. His mind had said, "If I'm nearer to the _Fatma_ I'll go
back; if I'm nearer to the _Loulia_ I'll go on." His eyes, keenly
judging the distances, told him he was nearer to the _Loulia_ than to
his own boat. The die was cast. He went on.
Surely Bella Donna knew it, spied it from her tower.
Now he heard he knew not where, violent voices of fellahin, of many
fellahin talking, as it seemed, furiously in the darkness. The noise
suggested a crowd roused by some strong emotion. It sounded quite near,
but not close. Isaacson stood still, listened, tried to locate it, but
could not. The voices rose in the night, kept perpetually at a high,
fierce pitch, like voices of men in a frenzy. Then abruptly they failed,
as if the night, wearied with their importunity, had fallen upon the
speakers and choked them. And the silence, broken only by the faint
rustle of the doura, was startling, was almost dreadful.
Isaacson walked more quickly, fixing his eyes on those lights to the
south. As he drew near to them, he was conscious of a sort of cold
excitement, cold because at its core lay apprehension. When he was very
near to them and could distinguish the solidity of the darkness out of
which they were shining, he walked slowly, and then presently stood
still. And as he stood still the Nubian sailors on the _Loulia_ began to
sing the song about Allah which Mrs. Armine had heard from the garden of
the Villa Androud on her first evening in Upper Egypt.
First a solo voice, vehement, strange to Western ears, immensely
expressive, like the voice of a mueddin summoning the faithful to
prayer, cried aloud, "Al-lah! Al-lah! Al-lah!" And this voice was
accompanied by a deep and monotonous murmur, and by the ground bass of
the daraboukkeh. Then the chorus of male voices joined in.
As Isaacson stood a little way off on the lonely bank of the Nile in
this deserted place--for the _Loulia_ was tied up far from any village,
in a desolate reach of the river--he thought that he had never heard
till now any music at the same time so pitiless and so sad, so cruel,
and yet, at moments, so full of a rough and artless yearning. It seemed
heavy with the burthen of fate, of that from which a man cannot escape,
though he strive with all his powers and cry out of the very depths of
his heart.
Like a great and sombre cloud the East settled down upon Isaacson as he
heard that song of the dark people. And as he stood in the cloud
something within him responded to these voices, responded to the souls
that were behind them.
Once, one morning in London, besieged by the commonplace, he had longed
for events, tragic, tremendous, horrible even, if only they were
unusual, if only they were such as would lift him into sharp activity.
Had that longing resulted in--now?
He put out one lean, dark hand, and pulled at the heavily podded head of
a doura plant. And the voices sang on, and on, and on.
Suddenly, with a sharp and cruel abruptness, they ceased.
"Al--" and silence! The name of the dark man's God was executed upon
their lips.
Isaacson let go the podded head of the doura. He waited. Then, as the
deep silence continued, he went on till the outline of the big boat was
distinct before his eyes, till he saw that the blue light was a lamp
fixed against an immense mast that bent over and tapered to a delicate
point. He saw that, and yet he still seemed to see Bella Donna upon her
tower; Bella Donna, the eternal spy, whose beautiful eyes had sought his
secrets between the walls of his consulting-room.
Very cautiously he went now. He looked warily about him. But he saw no
more upon the bank. It was not high here. Without a long descent he
would be able to see into the chambers of the _Loulia_, unless their
shutters were closed against the night. It was strange to think that he
was close to Nigel, and that Nigel believed him to be in Cleveland
Square, unless Mrs. Armine had been frank. Now he saw something moving
upon the bank, furtively creeping towards the lights, as if irresistibly
attracted, and yet always afraid. It was a wretched pariah dog,
starving, and with its yellow eyes fixed upon the thing that contained
food; a dog such as that which crept near to Mrs. Armine as she sat in
the garden of the villa, while Nigel, above her, watched the stars. As
Isaacson came near to it, it shivered and moved away, but not far. Then
it sat down and shook. Its ribs were like the ribs of a wrecked vessel.
Isaacson was close to the _Loulia_ now. He could see the balcony in the
stern where the doll had moved by the rail. It was lit by one electric
burner, and was not closed in with canvas, though there was a canvas
roof above it. Beyond it, through two large apertures, Isaacson could
see more light that gleamed in a room. He stood still again. Upon the
balcony he saw a long outline, the outline of a deckchair with a figure
stretched out in it. As he saw this the silence was again broken by
music. From the lighted room came the chilly and modern sound of a
piano.
Then Bella Donna had come down from her tower! Or had she never been
there?
Isaacson looked at the long outline, and listened. His mind was full of
that other music, the cry of Mohammedanism in the African night. This
music of Europe seemed out of place, like a nothing masquerading beneath
the stars. But in a moment he listened more closely; he moved a step
nearer. He was searching in his memory, was asking himself what that
music expressed, what it meant to him. No longer was it banal. There was
a sound in it, even played upon a piano, even heard in this night and
this desolate place between two deserts, of the elemental.
Bella Donna was playing that part of "The Dream of Gerontius" where the
soul of man is dismissed to its Maker.
"Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo!" (Go forth upon thy
journey, Christian soul! Go from this world!)
She was playing that, and the stretched figure in the long chair was
listening to it.
At that moment Isaacson felt glad that he had come to Egypt--glad in a
new way.
"Go forth ... go from this world!"
Almost he heard the deep and irreparable voice of the priest, and in the
music there was disintegration. In it the atoms parted. The temple
crumbled to let the inmate come forth.
Presently the music ceased. The murmur of a voice was audible. Then one
of the oblongs of light beyond the balcony was broken up by a darkness.
And the darkness came out, and bent above the stretched figure in the
chair. An instant later the electric burner that gave light to the
balcony was extinguished. Nigel and his wife were together in the
dimness, with the lighted room beyond them.
When the light was turned out, the pariah dog got up stealthily and
crept much nearer to the _Loulia_. Its secret movement, observed by
Isaacson, made an unpleasant impression upon him. He drew a parallel
between it and himself, and felt himself to be a pariah, because of what
he was doing. But something within him that was much stronger than his
sense of discretion, and of "the right thing" for a decently bred man to
do, had taken him to this place in the night, kept him there, even
prompted him to imitate the starving dog, and to move nearer to those
two who believed themselves isolated in the dimness.
He was determined to hear the voice of the stretched figure in the long
chair.
The light that issued from the room of the faskeeyeh faintly illuminated
part of the balcony. Isaacson heard the murmuring voice of Mrs. Armine
again. Then one of the oblongs was again obscured, and the room was
abruptly plunged in darkness. As Mrs. Armine returned, Isaacson stole
down the shelving bank and took up a position close to the last window
of this room. The crew and the servants were all forward on the lower
deck, which was shut in closely by canvas. On the upper deck of the boat
there was no one. If Mrs. Armine had lingered after putting out the
light, she would perhaps have seen the figure of a man. But she did not
linger. Isaacson had felt that she would not linger. And he was out of
range of the vision of any one on the balcony, although now so close to
it that it was almost as if he stood upon it. The Nile flowed near his
feet with a sucking murmur that was very faint in the night. There was
no other sound to interfere between him and the two voices.
A dress rustled. He thought of the sanctuary in the temple of Edfou.
Then a faint and strangely toneless voice, that he did not recognize,
said:
"That's ever so much better. I do hate that strong light."
"But who is that in the chair, then?" Isaacson asked himself,
astonished. "Have they got some one on board with them?"
"Electric light tries a great many people."
Isaacson knew the voice which said that. It was Mrs. Armine's voice,
gentle, melodious, and seductive. And he thought of the hoarse and
hideous sound which that morning he had heard in the temple.
"Do sit down by me," said the first voice.
Could it really be Nigel's? This time there was in it a sound that was
faintly familiar to Isaacson--a sound to which he listened almost as a
man may regard a shadow and say to himself, "Is that shadow cast by my
friend?"
A dress rustled. And the tiny noise was followed by the creak of a
basket chair.
"Don't you think you're a little better to-night?" said Mrs. Armine.
The other sighed.
"No."
"Doctor Baring Hartley said you would recover rapidly."
"Ruby, he doesn't understand my case. He can't understand it."
"But he seemed so certain. And he's got a great reputation in America."
"But he doesn't understand. To-night I feel--when you were playing
'Gerontius' I felt that--that I must soon go. 'Proficiscere, anima
Christiana, de hoc mundo'--I felt as if somewhere that was being said to
me."
"Nigel!"
"It's strange that I, who've always loved the sun, should be knocked
over by the sun, isn't it? Strange that what one loves should destroy
one!"
"But--but that's not true, Nigel. You are getting better, although you
don't think so."
"Ruby"--the voice was almost stern, and now it was more like the voice
that Isaacson knew--"Ruby, I'm getting worse. To-day I feel that I'm
going to die."
"Let me telegraph for Doctor Hartley. At dawn to-morrow I shall send the
boat to Edfou--"
"If only Isaacson were here!"
There was a silence. Then Mrs. Armine said:
"What could Doctor Isaacson do more than has been done?"
"He's a wonderful man. He sees what others don't see. I feel that he
might find out what's the matter."
"Find out! But, Nigel, we know it's the sun. You yourself--"
"Yes, yes!"
"To-morrow I'll wire for Doctor Hartley to come down at once from
Assouan."
"It's this awful insomnia that's doing for me. All my life I've slept so
well--till now. And the rheumatic pains; how can the sun--Ruby,
sometimes I think it's nothing to do with the sun."
"But, then, what can it be? You know you would expose yourself, though I
begged and implored--"
"But the heat's nothing new to me. For months in the Fayyum I worked in
the full glare of the sun. And it never hurt me."
"Nigel, it was the sun. One may do a thing ninety-nine times, and the
hundredth time one pays for it."
A chair creaked.
"Do you want to turn, Nigel? Wait, I'll help you."
"Isn't it awful to lose all one's strength like this?"
"It'll come back. Wait! You're slipping. Let me put my arm behind you."
"Yes, give me your hand, dearest!"
After a pause he said:
"Poor Ruby! What a time for you! You never guessed you'd married a
miserable crock, did you?"
"I haven't. Any one may get a sunstroke. In two or three weeks you'll be
laughing at all this. Directly it passes you'll forget it."
"But I have a feeling sometimes that--it's a feeling--of death."
"When? When?"
"Last night, in the night. I felt like a man just simply going out."
"I never ought to have let Doctor Hartley go. But you said you wanted to
be alone with me, didn't you, Nigel?"
"Yes. I felt somehow that Hartley could be of no use--that no ordinary
man could do anything. I felt as if it were Fate, and as if you and I
must fight it together. I felt as if--perhaps--our love--"
The voice died away.
Isaacson clenched his hands, and moved a step backward. The shivering
pariah dog slunk away, fearing a blow.
"What was that?" Nigel said.
"Did you hear something?"
"Yes--a step."
"Oh, it's one of the men, no doubt. Shall I play to you a little more?"
"Can you without putting on the light? I'm afraid of the light now
and--and how I used to love it!"
"I'll manage."
"But you'll have to take away your hand! Wait a minute. Oh, Ruby, it's
terrible! To-night I feel like a man on the edge of an abyss, and as if,
without a hand, I must fall--I--"
Isaacson heard a dry, horrid sound, that was checked almost at once.
"I never--never thought I should come to this, Ruby."
"Never mind, dearest. Any one--"
"Yes--yes--I know. But I hate--it isn't like a man to--Go and play to me
again."
"I won't play 'Gerontius.' It makes you think sad things, dreadful
things."
"No, play it again. It was on your piano that day I called--in London. I
shall always associate it with you."
The dress rustled. She was getting up.
Isaacson hesitated no longer. He went instantly up the bank. When he had
reached the top he stood still for a moment. His breath came quickly.
Below, the piano sounded. Bella Donna had not seen him, had not, without
seeing him, divined his presence. He might go while she played, and she
would never know he had been there eavesdropping in the night. No one
would ever know. And to-morrow, with the sun, he could come back openly,
defying her request. He could come back boldly and ask for his friend.
"Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo!"
He would come back and see the face that went with that changed voice,
that voice which he had hardly recognized.
"Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul! Go from this world!"
He moved to go away to those far-off lights which showed where the
_Fatma_ lay, by Edfou.
"Go forth ... go from this world!"
Was it the voice of a priest? Or was it the irreparable voice of a
woman?
Suddenly Isaacson breathed quietly. He unclenched his hands. A wave--it
was like that--a wave of strong self-possession seemed to inundate him.
Now, in the darkness on the bank, a great doctor stood. And this doctor
had nothing to do with the far-off lights by Edfou. His mission lay
elsewhere.
"Go forth--go forth from this world!"
He walked along the bank, down the bank to the gangway which connected
the deck of the _Loulia_ forward with the shore. He pushed aside the
dropped canvas, and he stepped upon the deck. A number of dark eyes
gravely regarded him. Then Hamza detached himself from the hooded crowd
and came up to where Isaacson was standing.
"Give that card to your master, and ask if I can see him."
"Yes!" said Hamza.
He went away with the card. There was a pause.
Then abruptly, the sound of the piano ceased.