When she had sent her note to the _Fatma_, Mrs. Armine had secretly
telegraphed to Doctor Hartley, begging him to come to the _Loulia_ as
quickly as possible. She had implied to Isaacson that he would arrive
about four the next day. Perhaps she had forgotten, or had not known how
the trains ran from Assouan.
However that was, Doctor Hartley arrived many hours before the time
mentioned by Mrs. Armine for a consultation, and was in full possession
of the case and in command of the patient while Isaacson was still on
the _Fatma_.
Isaacson had not slept all night. That dream of the Nile into which he
had softly sunk was gone, was as if it never had been. His instinct was
to start for the _Loulia_ at daybreak. But for once he denied this
instinct. Cool reason spoke in the dawn saying, "Festina lente." He
listened. He held himself in check. After his sleepless night, in which
thought had been feverish, he would spend some quiet, lonely hours.
There was, he believed, no special reason, after the glance he had sent
to Mrs. Armine just before he went out of Nigel's cabin, why he should
hurry in the first hour of the new day to the sick man he meant to cure.
Let the sleeping draught do its work, and let the clear morning hours
correct any fever in his own mind.
And so he rested on deck, while the sun climbed the pellucid sky, and he
watched the men at the shaduf. The sunlight struck the falling water and
made it an instant's marvel. And the marvel recurred, for the toil never
ceased. The naked bodies bent and straightened. The muscles stood out,
then seemed to flow away, like the flowing water, on the arms under the
bronze-coloured skin. And from lungs surely made of brass came forth the
fierce songs that have been thrown back from the Nile's brown banks
perhaps since the Sphinx first set his unworldly eyes towards eternity.
But though Isaacson deliberately paused to get himself very thoroughly
and calmly in hand, paused to fight with possible prejudice and drive it
out of him, he did not delay till the hour fixed by Mrs. Armine. Soon
after one o'clock in the full heat of the day, he set out in the tiny
tub which was the only felucca on board of the _Fatma_, and he took
Hassan with him. Definitely why he took Hassan, he perhaps could not
have stated. He just thought he would take him, and did.
Very swiftly he had returned with the tide in the night. Now, in the eye
of day, he must go up river against it. The men toiled hard, lifting
themselves from their seats with each stroke of the oars and bracing
their legs for the strain. But the boat's progress was slow, and
Isaacson sometimes felt as if some human strength were striving
persistently to repel him. He had the sensation of a determined
resistance which must be battled with ruthlessly. And now and then his
own body was tense as he watched his men at their work. But at last they
drew near to the _Loulia_, and his keen, far-seeing eyes searched the
balcony for figures. He saw none. The balcony was untenanted. Now it
seemed to him as if in the fierce heat, upon the unshaded water, the
great boat was asleep, as if there was no life in her anywhere; and this
sensation of the absence of life increased upon him as they came nearer
and nearer. All round the upper deck, except perhaps on the land side of
the boat, which he could not see, canvas was let down. Shutters were
drawn over the windows of the cabins. The doors of the room of the
fountain were open, but the room was full of shadow, which, from his
little boat, the eyes of Isaacson could not penetrate. As they came
alongside no voice greeted them. He began to regret having come in the
hour of the siesta. They glided along past green shutter after green
shutter till they were level with the forward deck. And there, in an
attitude of smiling attention, stood the tall figure of Ibrahim.
Isaacson felt almost startled to find his approach known, to receive a
graceful greeting.
He stepped on board followed closely by Hassan. The deck was strewn with
scantily clad men, profoundly sleeping. Isaacson addressed himself in a
low voice to Ibrahim.
"You understand English?"
"Yes, my gentleman. You come to meet the good doctor who him curin' my
Lord Arminigel. He bin here very long time."
"He's here already?"
Ibrahim smiled reassuringly.
"Very long time, my gentleman. Him comin' here to live with us till my
lord him well."
And Ibrahim turned, gathered together his gold-coloured skirts, and
mounted the stairs to the upper deck. Isaacson hesitated for a moment,
then followed him slowly. In that brief moment of hesitation the words
had gone through Isaacson's mind: "I ought to have been here sooner."
As he mounted and his eyes rose over the level of the top step of the
companion, he was aware of a slight young man, very smartly dressed in
white ducks, a loose silk shirt, a low, soft collar and pale,
rose-coloured tie, a perfectly cut grey jacket with a small blue line in
it, rose-coloured socks, and white buckskin boots, who was lying almost
at full length in a wide deck-chair against cushions, with a panama hat
tilted so far down over his eyes that its brim rested delicately upon
his well-cut, rather impertinent short nose. From his lips curled gently
pale smoke from a cigarette.
As Isaacson stepped upon the Oriental rugs which covered the deck, this
young man gently pushed up his hat, looked, let his legs quietly down,
and getting on his feet, said:
"Doctor Isaacson?"
"Yes," said Isaacson coming up to him.
The young man held out his hand with a nonchalant gesture.
"Glad to meet you. I'm Doctor Baring Hartley, in charge of this
sunstroke case aboard here. Came down to-day from Assouan to see how my
patient was getting on. Will you have a cigarette?"
"Thanks."
Doctor Isaacson accepted one.
"Fine air at Assouan! This your first visit to the Nile?"
The young man spoke with scarcely a trace of American accent. With his
hat set back, he was revealed as brown-faced, slightly freckled, with
very thick, dark hair, that was parted in the middle and waved
naturally, though it looked as if it had been crimped; a small
moustache, rather bristling, because it had been allowed only recently
to grow on a lip that had often been shaved; a round, rather sensual
chin; and large round eyes, in colour a yellow-brown. In these eyes the
character of the man was very clearly displayed. They were handsome, and
not insensitive; but they showed egoism, combined with sensuality. He
looked very young, but was just over thirty.
"Yes, it's my first visit."
"Won't you sit down?"
He spoke with the ease of a host, and sank into his deck chair, laying
his hat down upon his knees and stretching out his legs, from which he
pulled up the white ducks a little way. Isaacson sat down on a smaller
chair, leaned forward, and said, in a very practical, businesslike
voice:
"No doubt Mr. or Mrs. Armine--or both of them, perhaps, has explained
how I have come into this affair? I'm an old friend of your patient."
"So I gathered," said Doctor Hartley, in a voice that was remarkably
dry.
"I knew him long before he was married, very long before he was ever a
sick man, and being out here, and hearing about this sudden and severe
illness, of course I called to see how he was."
"Very natural."
"Probably you know my name as a London consulting physician."
"Decidedly. Your success, of course, is great, Doctor Isaacson. Indeed,
I wonder you are able to take a holiday. I wonder the ladies will let
you go."
He smiled, and touched his moustache affectionately.
"Why the ladies, especially?"
"I understood your practice lay chiefly among the neurotic smart women
of London."
"No."
Isaacson's voice echoed the dryness of Doctor Hartley's.
"I'm sorry."
"May I ask why?"
"On the other side of the water we find them--shall I say the best type
of patients?"
"Ah!"
Isaacson remembered the sentence of Mrs. Armine which had sent him
straight to the sick man. He seemed to detect her cruel prompting in the
half-evasive yet sufficiently clear words just spoken.
"Now about Mr. Armine," he said, brushing the topic of himself away. "I
am sure--"
But Doctor Hartley interrupted with quiet firmness. One quality he
seemed to have in the fullest abundance. He seemed to be largely
self-possessed.
"It always clears the ground to be frank, I find," he said, smoothing
out some creases in his ducks. "I don't require a consultation, Doctor
Isaacson. I don't consider it a case that needs a consultation at
present. Directly I do, I shall be glad to call you in."
Isaacson looked down at the rug beneath his chair.
"You consider Mr. Armine going on satisfactorily?" he asked, looking up.
"It's a severe case of sunstroke. It will take time and care. I have
decided to stay aboard for a few days to devote myself entirely to it."
"Very good of you."
"I have no doubt whatever of very soon pulling my patient round."
"You don't see any complications in the case?"
"Complications?"
The tone was distinctly, almost alertly, hostile. But Isaacson
reiterated coolly:
"Yes, complications. You are quite satisfied this is a case of
sunstroke?"
"Quite."
The word came with a hard stroke, that was like the stroke of finality.
"Well, I'm not."
Doctor Hartley stared.
"I know you have come over with a view to a consultation," he said,
stiffly. "But my patient has not demanded it, and as I think it entirely
unnecessary, you will recognize that we need not pursue this
conversation."
"You say the patient does not wish for my opinion on the case?" said
Isaacson, allowing traces of surprise to escape him.
"I do. He is quite satisfied to leave it in my hands. He told me so this
morning when I arrived."
"I am not reflecting for a moment on your capacity, Doctor Hartley. But,
really, in complex cases, two opinions--"
"Who says the case is complex?"
"I do. I was extremely shocked at the appearance of Mr. Armine when I
saw him last night. If you had ever known him in health, you would have
been as shocked as I was. He was one of the most robust, the most
brilliantly healthy, strong-looking men I have even seen."
As he spoke, Armine seemed to stand before Isaacson as he had been.
"The change in him, mind and body, is appalling," he concluded.
And there was in his voice an almost fearful sincerity.
Doctor Hartley fidgeted. He moved his hat, pulled down his ducks,
dropped his cigarette on the rug, then rather hastily and awkwardly put
it out with his foot. Sitting with his feet no longer cocked up but
planted firmly on the rug, he said:
"Of course, an attack like this changes a man. What else could you
expect? Really! What else could you expect? I noticed all that! That's
why I am going to stay. Upon my word"--as he spoke he seemed to work
himself into vexation--"upon my word, Doctor Isaacson, to hear you,
anyone would suppose I had been making light of my patient's condition."
Isaacson was confronted with fluffy indignation.
"You'll be accusing me of professional incompetence next, I dare say,"
continued Doctor Hartley. "I have not told you before, but I'll tell you
now, that I consider it a breach of the etiquette that governs our
profession, your interfering with my patient."
"How interfering?"
"I hear you gave him something last night--something to make him sleep."
"I did."
"Well, it's had a very bad effect upon him."
"Is he worse to-day?"
Isaacson, unknown to himself, said it with an almost fierce emphasis.
Doctor Hartley drew his lips tightly together.
"This is not a consultation," he said coldly.
"I ask as a friend of the patient's, not as a doctor."
"His night was not good."
He shut his lips tightly again. His face and his whole smartly-dressed
body expressed a rather weak but very lively hostility.
"He's asleep now," he added.
"Asleep now?"
"Yes. He'll sleep for several hours. _I_ have put him to sleep."
Isaacson's body suddenly felt relaxed, as if all the muscles of it were
loosened. For several hours his friend would sleep. For a moment he
enjoyed a sense of fascinating relief. Then his consciousness of relief,
awoke him to another and fuller consciousness of why this relief had
come to him, of that which had preceded it, and given it its intensity.
He must take off the gloves.
"Look here, Doctor Hartley," he said. "I don't want to put you out. I am
really not a vulgar, greedy doctor pushing myself into a case with which
I have no concern, for some self-interested motive. I can assure you
that I have more than enough to do with illness in London and should be
thankful to escape from it here. I want a holiday."
"Take one, my dear Doctor Isaacson," remarked Doctor Hartley,
imperturbably--"take one, and leave me to work."
"No. Professional etiquette or no professional etiquette, I can't take
one while my friend is in such a condition of illness. I can't do that."
"I'm really afraid you'll have to, so far as this case is concerned. I'm
an American, and I'm not going to be pushed away from a thing I've set
my hand to--pushed away discourteously, and against the desires of those
who have called me in. Never in the course of my professional experience
has another physician butted in--yes, that's the expression for it:
butted right in--without 'With' or 'By your leave,' as you have. It's
simply not to be borne. And I'm not the man to bear what's not to be
borne. Really, if one didn't know you to be a doctor, one would almost
take you for a Bowery detective. Straight, now, one would!"
"Where's Mrs. Armine?" said Isaacson abruptly. "Is she asleep, too?"
"She is."
The languid impertinence of the voice goaded Isaacson. Scarcely ever, if
ever, before had he felt such an almost physical longing for violence.
But he did not lose his self-restraint, although he suffered bitterly in
keeping it.
"Have you any idea how long she is going to sleep?"
"Some hours."
"What? Do you mean that you have put her to sleep, too?"
"I have ventured to do so. Her night had not been good."
Isaacson remembered the sounds that had come to him over the Nile.
"You have given her a sleeping draught?" he said.
"I have."
"But she was expecting me here. She was expecting me here for a
consultation."
"I beg your pardon. You were good enough to say you meant to come. Mrs.
Armine has been scrupulously delicate and courteous to me. That I know.
You placed her in a very difficult position. She explained matters when
I arrived."
She had "explained matters"! Isaacson felt rather as if he were fighting
an enemy who had laid a mine to check or to destroy him, and had then
retreated to a distance.
"Last night, Doctor Hartley," he said, very quietly and coldly, "Mr.
Armine, in Mrs. Armine's presence, expressed a strong wish to put
himself in my hands. I came here with not the least intention of being
impolite, but since you have chosen to make things difficult for me I
must speak out. Last night Mr. Armine said, 'I don't want anything more
to do with Hartley. He knows nothing. I won't have him to-morrow.' Mrs.
Armine was with us and heard these words."
A violent flush showed through the brown on the young man's face. His
round eyes stared with an expression of crude amazement that was almost
laughable.
"He--he said--" he began. Then abruptly, allowing an American drawl to
appear in his voice, he said, "Pardon! But I don't believe it."
"It's quite true, nevertheless."
"I don't believe it. That's a fact. I've seen Mr. Armine, and he was
most delighted to welcome me. He put himself entirely in my hands. He
asked me to 'save' him."
Suddenly Isaacson felt a sickness at his heart.
"I must see him," he almost muttered.
"I won't have him disturbed," said Doctor Hartley, with now the
transparently open enmity of a very conceited man who had been insulted.
"As his physician I forbid you to disturb my patient."
The two men looked at one another in silence.
"After what occurred last night, and what has occurred here to-day, I
cannot go without seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Armine," Isaacson said at
last.
Was Nigel's weakness of mind, the sad product of his illness of body, to
fight against his friend, to battle against his one chance of recovery?
That would complicate matters. That--Isaacson clearly recognized
it--would place him at so grave a disadvantage that it might render his
position impossible. What had been the scene last night after he had
left the _Loulia_? How had it affected the sick man? Again he seemed to
hear that dreadful laughter, the cries that had followed upon it!
"If I am not to see Mr. Armine as a doctor, then I must ask to see him
as a friend."
"For a day or two I shall not be able to give permission for any one to
see him, except Mrs. Armine and myself, and of course his servant,
Hamza."
Isaacson sent a sudden, piercing look, a look that was like something
sharp that could cut deep into the soul, to the man who faced him. Just
for a moment a suspicion besieged him, a suspicion hateful and surely
absurd, yet--for are not all things possible in the cruel tangle of
life?--that might be grounded on truth. Before that glance the young
doctor moved, with a start of uneasiness, despite his self-possession.
"What--what d'you mean?" he almost stammered. "What d'you mean?" He felt
mechanically at his tie. "I don't understand you," he said. Then,
recovering himself, as the strangely fierce expression died away from
the eyes which had learnt what they wanted to know, he added:
"I certainly shall not give permission for you to see Mr. Armine. You
would disturb and upset him very much. He needs the greatest quiet and
repose. The brain is a fearfully sensitive organ."
Now, suddenly, Isaacson felt as if he was with an obstinate boy, and any
anger he had felt against his companion evaporated. Indeed, he was
conscious of a strong sensation of pity, mingled with irony. For a
moment he had wronged the young doctor by a doubt, and for that moment
he had a wish to make some amends. The man's unconsciousness of it did
not concern him. It was to himself really that the amends were due.
"Doctor Hartley," he said almost cordially, "I think we don't quite
understand one another. Perhaps that is my fault. I oughtn't to have
repeated Mr. Armine's words. They were spoken and meant. But a sick man
speaks out of his sickness. We doctors realize that and don't take too
much account of what he says. You are here, I am sure, with no desire
but to cure my poor friend. I am here with the same desire. Why should
we quarrel?"
"I have no wish whatever to quarrel. But I will not submit to a man
butting in from outside and trying to oust me from a case of which I
have been formally given the control."
"I don't wish to oust you. I only wish to be allowed to co-operate with
you. I only wish to hear your exact opinion of the case and to be
allowed to form and give you mine. Come, Doctor Hartley, it isn't as if
I were a pushing, unknown man. In London I'm offered far more work than
I can touch. It will do your medical reputation no harm to call me in,
in consultation. Without undue conceit, I hope I can say that. And
if--if you have got hold of the idea that I'm on the Nile to make money,
disabuse your mind of it. This is a case in which a little bit of my own
personal happiness is wrapped up. I've--I've a strong regard for this
sick man. That's the truth of it."
Doctor Hartley looked at him, looked away, and looked at him again.
"I don't doubt your friendship for Mr. Armine," he said, at last, laying
a faint stress upon the penultimate word.
"Will you let me discuss the case amicably with you? No formal
consultation! Just let me hear your views fully, and mention anything
that occurs to me."
"Occurs? But you haven't examined the patient. You haven't made any
thorough examination, or entered into the circumstances of the case."
"No. But I've seen the patient."
"Only for a very few minutes, I understand. How can you have formed a
definite opinion?"
"I did not say I had. But one or two things struck me."
Doctor Hartley stared with his handsome, round eyes.
"For instance, the patient's sallow colour, the patient's rheumatic
pains, the patient's breath, and--did you happen to observe it? But no
doubt you did!--the patient's dropped wrist."
The young doctor's face had become more serious. He looked much less
conscious of himself at this moment.
"Dropped wrist!" he said.
"Yes."
"Of course! Muscular weakness brought on quite naturally by prolonged
illness. The man has simply been knocked down by this touch of the sun.
Travellers ought to be more careful than they are out here."
"I suppose you're aware that the patient has already lived and worked in
Egypt for many months at a time. He has land in the Fayyum, and has been
cultivating it himself. He's no novice in Egypt, no untried tourist.
He's soaked in the sun without hurt by the month together."
"As much as that?" said Hartley.
"Isn't it rather odd that so early in the year as February he should be
stricken down by the spring sunshine?"
"It is queer--yes, it is queer," assented the other.
He crossed one leg over the other and looked abstracted.
"I suppose Mr. Armine himself thought the illness was brought about by
the sun?" said Isaacson, after a minute.
"Well--oh, from the first it was an understood thing that he'd got a
touch of the sun. There's no doubt whatever about that. He went out at
noon, and actually dug at Thebes without covering his head. Sheer
madness! People saw him doing it."
"And it all came on after that?"
"Yes, the serious symptoms. Of course he wasn't in very good health to
start with."
"No?"
"He'd been having dyspepsia. Caught a chill one evening bathing in the
Nile--somewhere off Kous, I believe it was. That rendered him more
susceptible than usual."
"Naturally. So that he was already unwell before he did that foolish
thing at Thebes?"
"He was seedy, but not really ill."
"What a long talk you're having!" said a voice.
Both men started, and into Doctor Baring Hartley's face there came a
look of painful self-consciousness, as of one unexpectedly detected in
an unpardonable action. He sprang up.
Mrs. Armine was standing near the top of the companion.