"Who?"
"Yourself. Hark! the sailors are singing. I expect we are going to tie up."
That night, as Mrs. Armine lay awake in the cabin which was Baroudi's, and which, in contrast to all the other bedrooms on theLoulia, was sombre in its colouring and distinctively Oriental, she thought of the conversation of the afternoon, and realized that she must keep a tighter hold over her nerves, put a stronger guard upon her temper. Without really intending to, she had let herself run loose, she had lost part of her self-control. Not all, for as usual when she told some truth, she had made it serve her very much as a lie might have served her. But by speaking as she had about Meyer Isaacson she had made herself fully realize something—that she was afraid of him, or that in the future she might become afraid of him. Why had Nigel written just now? Why had he drawn Isaacson's attention to them and their lives just now? It was almost as if—and then she pulled herself up sharply. She was not going to be a superstitious fool. It was, of course, perfectly natural for Nigel to write to his friend. Nevertheless, she wished ardently that Isaacson was not his friend, that those keen doctor's eyes, which seemed to sum up the bodily and mental states of woman or man with one bright and steady glance, had never looked upon her.
And most of all she wished that they might never look upon her again.
In the house in Cleveland Square, on a morning in late January, Meyer Isaacson read Nigel's letter.
"Villa Androud,"Luxor, Upper Egypt, Jan. 21st."Dear Isaacson, "Here at last is a letter, the first I've sat down to write to you since the note telling you of my marriage. I had your kind letter in answer, and showed it to Ruby, who was as pleased with it as I was. She liked you from the first, and I think has always wished to know you better since you went to cheer her up in her London solitude. Some day I suppose she will have the chance, but now we are on the eve of cutting ourselves off from every one and giving ourselves up to the Nile. You are surprised, perhaps? You thought I should be hard at it in the Fayyūm, looking after my brown fellows? Well, I'm as keen as ever on the work there, and if you could have seen me not many days ago, nearly up to my knees in mud, and as oily and black as a stoker, you'd know it. My wife was in the Fayyūm with me, and has been roughing it like a regular Spartan. She packed off her French maid so as to be quite free, and has been living under the tent, riding camels, feeding anyhow, and, in short, getting a real taste of the nomad's life in the wilds. She cottoned to it like anything, although no doubt she missed her comforts now and then. But she never complained, she's looking simply splendid—years younger than she did when you saw her in London—and won't hear of having another maid, though now she might quite well get one. For I felt I oughtn't to keep her too long in the wilds just at first, although she was quite willing to stay, and didn't want to take me away from my work. I knew she was naturally anxious to see something of the wonders of Egypt, and the end of it was that we decided to take a dahabeeyah trip on the Nile, and are on the eve of starting. You should see our boat, theLoulia! she's a perfect beauty, and, apart from a few absurd details which I haven't the time to describe, would delight you. The bedrooms are Paris, but the sitting-rooms are like rooms in an Eastern house. You'll say Paris and the East don't go together. Granted! But it's very jolly to be romantic by day and soused in modern comfort at night. Now isn't it? Especially after the Fayyūm. And we've actually got a fountain on board, to say nothing of prayer rugs by the dozen which beat any I've seen in the bazaars of Cairo. For we haven't hired from Cook, but from an Egyptian millionaire of Alexandria called Mahmoud Baroudi, whom we met coming out, and who happened to want a tenant for his boat just in the nick of time. It isn't my money he needs, though I'm paying him what I should pay Cook for a first-rate boat, but he doesn't like leaving his crew and servants with nothing to do. He says they get into mischief. He was looking out for a rich American—like nearly every one out here—when he happened to hear from one of our fellows, a first-rate chap called Ibrahim, that we wanted a good boat, and so the bargain was made. Our plans are pretty vague. We want to get right away from trippers, and just be together in all the delicious out-of-the-way places on the river; see the temples and tombs quietly, enter into the life of the natives—in fact, steep ourselves to the lips in Nile water. I can't tell you how we are both looking forward to it. Isaacson, we're happy! Out here in this climate, this air, this clearness—like radiant sincerity it is, I often think—it's difficult not to be happy; but I think we're happier even than most people out here—at any rate I'm sure I am—I'll dare to say than any one else out here. And I'll say it with audacity and without superstitious fears of the future. The sun's streaming in over me as I write; I hear the voices of the watermen singing; I see my wife in the garden walking to the river bank, and I've got this trip before me. And—just remembered it!—I'm superbly well. Never in my life have I been in such splendid health. They say a perfectly healthy man should be unconscious of his body. Well, when I get up in the morning, all I know is that I say to myself, 'You're in grand condition, old chap!' And I think that consciousness means more than any unconsciousness. Don't you? I've no use for all your knowledge, your skill, out here—no use at all. Are there really people being ill in London? Are your consulting-rooms crowded? I can't believe it, any more than I can believe in the darkness of London days. What a selfish brute I am! You're hating me, aren't you? But it's so good to be happy. When I'm happy, I always feel that I'm fulfilling the law. If you want to fulfil the law better, come to Egypt. But you ought to bringthewoman with you into the sunshine. I can't say any more; I needn't say any more. Now, you understand that it's all right. Do you remember our walk home from the concert that night, and how I said, 'I want to get into the light, the real light'? Well, I'm in it, and how I wish that you and every one else could be in it too! Forgive my egoism. Write to me at this address when you have time. Come to the Nile when next you take a holiday, and, with many messages from us both,"Believe us"Your friends,"N. A. and R. A."I sign for her. She's still in the garden, where I'm just going."
"Villa Androud,
"Luxor, Upper Egypt, Jan. 21st.
"Believe us
"Your friends,"N. A. and R. A.
"I sign for her. She's still in the garden, where I'm just going."
A letter of success. A letter subtly breathing out from every line the message, "You were wrong." A letter of triumph, devoid of the cruelty that triumph often holds. A letter, surely, for a true friend to rejoice in?
Meyer Isaacson held it for a long while in his hands, forgetful of the tea that was standing at his elbow.
The day was dark and grim, a still, not very cold, but hopeless day of the dawning year. And he, was he not holding sunshine? The strange thing was that it did not warm him, that it seemed rather to add a shadow to London's dimness.
Mrs. Armine without a maid! He scarcely knew why, but that very small event, the dismissal of a maid, seemed almost to bristle up at him out of his friend's letter. He knew smart women well, and he knew that the average smart woman would rather do without the hope of Heaven than do without her maid. Mrs. Armine must have changed indeed since she was Mrs. Chepstow. Could she have changed so much? Do people of mature age change radically when an enthusiastic influence is brought to bear upon them?
All day long Isaacson was pondering that question.
Nigel was knocking at a door. Had it opened to him? Would it ever open? He thought it would. Probably he thought it had.
He and his wife were going away to be together "in all the delicious out-of-the-way places on the Nile," and they were "happier than most people"—even than most people in the region of gold.
And yet two sons had been born to Lord Harwich, and Nigel had been cut out of the succession!
When he had read that news, Isaacson had wondered what effect it would have in theménageon the Nile—how the greedy woman would bear it.
Apparently she had borne it well. Nigel did not even mention it.
And the departure of that maid! Mrs. Armine without a maid! Again that night as Isaacson sat alone reading Nigel's letter that apparently unimportant fact seemed to bristle up from the paper and confront him. What was the meaning of that strange renunciation? What had prompted it? "She packed off her French maid so as to be quite free." Free for what?
The doctor lit a cigar, and leaned back in a deep arm-hair. And he began to study that cheery letter almost as a detective studies the plan of a house in which a crime has been committed. When his cigar was smoked out, he laid the letter aside, but he still refrained for a while from going to bed. His mind was far away on the Nile. Never had he seen the Nile. Should he go to see it, soon, this year, this spring? He remembered a morning's ride, when the air of London was languorous, had seemed for a moment almost exotic. That air had made him wish to go away, far away, to the land where he would be really at home, where he would be in "his own place." And then he had imagined a distant country where all romances unwind their shining coils. And he had longed for events, tragic, tremendous, horrible, even, if only they were unusual. He had longed for an incentive which would call his secret powers into supreme activity.
Should he go to the Nile very soon—this spring?
He looked again at the letter. He read again those apparently insignificant words:
"She packed off her French maid, so as to be quite free."
The next day was Sunday. Meyer Isaacson had no patients and no engagements. He had deliberately kept the day free, in order that he might study, and answer a quantity of letters. He was paying the penalty of his great success, and was one of the hardest worked men in London. At the beginning of the New Year he had even broken through his hitherto inflexible rule, and now he frequently saw patients up till half-past seven o'clock. He dined out much less than in former days, and was seldom seen at concerts and the play. Success, like a monster, had gripped him, was banishing pleasure from his life. He worked harder and harder, gained ever more and more money, rose perpetually nearer to the top of his ambition. Not long ago royalty had called him in for the first time, and been pleased to approve both of him personally and of his professional services. The future, no doubt, held a title for him. All the ultra-fashionable world thronged to consult him. Even since the Armines' departure he had gone up several rungs of the ladder. His strong desire to "arrive"—and arrival in his mind meant far more than it does in the minds of most men—and his acute pleasure in adding perpetually to his fortune, drove him incessantly onward. In his few free hours he was slowly and laboriously writing a work on poisons, the work for which he had been preparing in Italy during his last holiday. On this Sunday he meant to devote some hours to it. But first he would "get through" his letters.
After a hasty breakfast, he shut himself up in his study. London seemed strangely quiet. Even here within four walls, and without looking at the outside world, one felt that it was Sunday; one felt also that almost everybody was out of town. A pall of grey brooded over the city. Isaacson turned on the electric light, stood for a moment in front of the fire, then went over to his writing-table. The letters he intended to answer were arranged in a pile on the right hand side of his blotting-pad. Many of them—most of them—were from people who desired to consult him, or from patients about their cases. These letters meant money. Numbers of them he could answer with a printed card to which he would only have to add a date and a name. Monotonous work, but swiftly done, a filling up of many of the hours of his life which were near at hand.
He sat down, took a packet of his printed engagement forms, and a pen, put them before him, then opened one of the letters:
"4,Manton Street, Mayfair, Jan. 2."Dear Doctor Isaacson:"My health," etc., etc.
"4,Manton Street, Mayfair, Jan. 2.
"Dear Doctor Isaacson:
"My health," etc., etc.
He opened another:
"200,Park Lane, Jan. ——"Dear Doctor Isaacson:"I don't know what is the matter with me, but—" etc., etc.
"200,Park Lane, Jan. ——
"Dear Doctor Isaacson:
"I don't know what is the matter with me, but—" etc., etc.
He took up a third:
"1x,Berkeley Square, Jan. ——"Dear Doctor Isaacson:"That strange feeling in my head has returned, and I should like to see you about it," etc., etc.
"1x,Berkeley Square, Jan. ——
"Dear Doctor Isaacson:
"That strange feeling in my head has returned, and I should like to see you about it," etc., etc.
Usually he answered such letters with energy, and certainly without any disgust. They were the letters he wanted. He could scarcely have too many of them. But to-day a weariness overtook him; almost more than a weariness, a sort of sick irritation against the life that he had chosen and that he was making a marvellous success of. Illness, always illness! Pale faces, disordered nerves, dyspepsia, melancholia, anæmia, all the troop of ills that afflict humanity, marching for ever into his room! What company for a man to keep! What company! Suddenly he pushed away the printed forms, put down his pen, and got up.
He knew quite well what was troubling him. It was the letter he had had from the Nile. At first it had disturbed him in one way. Now it was disturbing him in another. It was a call to him from a land which he knew he must love, a call to him from his own place. For his ancestors had been Jews of the East, and some of them had been settled in Cairo. It was a call from the shining land. He remembered how one night, when Nigel and he were talking about Egypt, Nigel had said: "You ought to go there. You'd be in your right place there."
If he did go there! If he went soon, very soon—this spring!
But how could he take a holiday in the spring, just when everybody was coming to town? Then he told himself that he was saying nonsense to himself. People went abroad in the spring, to India, Sicily, the Riviera, the Nile. Ah, he was back again on the Nile! But so many people did not go abroad. It would be madness for a fashionable doctor to be away just when the season was coming on. Well, but he might run out for a very short time—for a couple of weeks, something like that. Two nights from London to Naples; two nights at sea in one of the new, swift boats, theHeliopolis, perhaps; a few hours in the train, and he would be at Cairo. Five nights' travelling would bring him to the first cataract. And he would be in the real light.
He stared at the electric bulbs that gleamed on either side of the mantelpiece. Then he glanced towards the windows, oblongs of dingy grey looking upon fog and daylight darkness.
That would be good, to be in the real light!
Nigel's letter lay somewhere under the letters from patients. The Doctor went back to his table, searched for it, and found it. Then he came back to the fire, and studied the letter carefully again.
"Do you remember our walk home from the concert that night, and how I said, 'I want to get into the light, the real light'? Well, I'm in it, and how I wish that you and every one else could be in it too!... Come to the Nile when next you take a holiday."
It was almost an invitation to go; not quite an invitation, but almost. Isaacson seemed to divine that the man who wrote wished his friend to come out and see his happiness, but that he did not quite dare to ask him to come out; seemed to divine a hostile influence that kept the pen in check.
"I wonder if she knows of this letter?"
That question came into Isaacson's mind. The last words of the letter almost implied that she knew. Nigel had meant to tell her of it, had doubtless told her of it on the day when he wrote it. If Isaacson went to the Nile, there was one person on the river who would not welcome him. He knew that well. And Nigel, of course, did not really want him. Happy people do not really want friends outside to come into the magic circle and share their happiness. They may say they do, out of good-will. Even for a moment, moved by an enthusiastic impulse, they may think that they do. But true happiness is exquisitely exclusive in its desires.
"Armine would like me just to see it's all right, and then, when I've seen, he would like to kick me out."
That was how Isaacson summed up eventually Nigel's exact feeling towards him at this moment. It was hardly worth while undertaking the journey from England to gratify such a desire of the happy egoist. Better put the idea away. It was impracticable, and—
"Besides, it's quite out of the question!"
The Doctor returned to his table, and began resolutely to write answers to his letters, and to fix appointments. He went on writing until every letter was answered—every letter but Nigel Armine's.
And then again the strong desire came upon him to answer it in person, one morning to appear on the riverbank where the—what was the name?—theLouliawas tied up, to walk on deck, and say, "I congratulate you on your happiness."
How amazed his friend would be! And his enemy—what would her face be like?
Isaacson always thought of Mrs. Armine as his enemy. She had come into his life as a spy. He felt as if from the first moment when she had seen him she had hated him. She had got the better of him, and she knew it. Possibly now, because of that knowledge, she would like him better. She had won out. Or had she, now that Lord Harwich had an heir?
As he sat there with Nigel's letter before him, a keen, an almost intense curiosity was alive in Meyer Isaacson. It was not vulgar, but the natural curiosity of the psychologist about strange human things. Since the Armines had left London and he had known of their marriage, Isaacson had thought of them often, but a little vaguely, as of people who had quite gone out of his life for a time. He had to concentrate on his own affairs. But now, with this letter, despite the great distance between the Armines and himself, they seemed to be quite near him. All his recollection of his connection with them started up in his mind, vivid and almost fierce. Especially he remembered the clever woman, the turn of her beautiful head, the look in the eyes contradicting the lovely line of the profile, the irony of her smile, the attractive intonations of her lazy voice. He remembered his two visits to her, how she had secretly defied him. He recalled exactly her appearance when he had bade her good-bye for the last time, eight days before she had been married to Nigel. She had stood by the hearth, in a rose-coloured gown, with smoke-wreaths curling round her. And she had looked quite lovely in her secret triumph. But as he went out, he had noticed the tiny wrinkles near her eyes, the slight hardness about her cheek-bones, the cynical droop at the corners of her mouth.
And he had remembered these things when he learnt of the marriage, and he had foreseen disaster.
He smoothed out Nigel's letter, and he took up his pen to answer it. Since he could not answer it in person, he must despatch the substitute. But now the dreary quiet of the London Sunday distressed him as if it were noise. He found himself listening to it with a sort of anxiety; he felt as if he must struggle against it before he could write sincerely to Nigel. There was something paralyzing in this dark and foggy peace.
Why was he heaping up money, grasping at fame, dedicating himself to imprisonment within the limits of this house, within this sunless town? Why was he starving his love of beauty, his natural love of adventure, his quick feeling for romance? Or was it quick any longer? Things not encouraged die sometimes. Certainly, he was starving deliberately much of himself.
Again came the desire to let, for once, a strong impulse have its way, to forget, for once, that he was a man under strict discipline—the discipline of his own cruel will—or to remember and mutiny. For a moment his thoughts were almost like a schoolboy's. The fun of it! The fun of rapid packing, of saying to Henry (unboundedly amazed), "Call me a four-wheeler!" of the drive to Charing Cross, of the registering of the luggage, of the rapid flight through the wintry landscape till the grey sea beat up almost against the line, of the—
And presently Naples! A blue sea, the mountains of Crete, the iron ridges of Zante, and at last a laughing harbour, boats with bellying lateen sails manned by dark men in turbans, white houses, flat roofs, palm-trees!
It would be good! It would be splendid!
If he answered Nigel's letter, he would not yield to his impulse. And if he did not answer it—?
After long hesitation, he put the letter aside, he got out of a drawer his pile of manuscript paper, and he set himself to work. And presently he forgot that it was Sunday in London; he forgot everything except what he was doing. But in the evening, when he was dining alone, the longing to be off returned, and though he said to himself that he would not yield to it, he did not answer Nigel's letter. Absurdly, he felt that by not answering it he left the door open to this possible pleasure.
He never answered that letter. Day after day went by. He worked with unflagging energy. He seemed as attentive to, as deeply interested in, his patients as usual. But all the time that he sat in his consulting-room, that he listened to accounts of symptoms, that he gave advice and wrote out prescriptions, he was secretly playing with the idea that perhaps this spring he would take a holiday in Egypt. He had an ardent, though generally carefully controlled imagination. Just now he gave it the reins. In the darkest days he saw himself in sunlight. When he looked at the bare trees in the parks, they changed in a moment to opulent palms. He heard a soft wind stirring their mighty leaves. It spoke to him of the desert. Never before had he gained such definite pleasure from his imagination. Had he become a child again? It almost seemed so. If his patients only knew the present truths of the man whom they begged to lead them to health! If they only knew his wanderings while they were unfolding their tales of wonder and woe! But his face told nothing. It did not cry to them, "I am in Egypt!" And so they were never perturbed.
February slipped away.
If he really meant to go to the Nile, he must not delay his departure. Did he mean to go? So long now had he played with the delightful imagination of a voyage to the sun that he began to say to himself that he had had his pleasure and must rest satisfied. He even told himself the commonplace lie that the thought of a thing is more satisfactory than the thing itself could ever be, and that to him the real Egypt would prove a disappointment after the imagined Egypt of his winter dreams. And he decided that he would not go, that he had never intended to go.
On the day when he took this decision, he got a letter from a patient whom he had sent to winter on the Nile. She wrote from Luxor many details of her condition, which he read slowly and with care. Towards the end of the letter, perhaps made frolicsome by confession, she broke into gossip, related several little scandals of various hotels, and concluded with this paragraph:
"Quite an excitement has been caused here by the arrival of a marvellous dahabeeyah called theLoulia. She is the most lovely boat on the Nile, I am told, and every one is longing to go over her. But there is no chance for any of us. In the first place theLouliais tied up at the western bank, on the Theban side of the river, and, in the second place, she belongs for the season to the Nigel Armines. And, as of course you remember, Mrs. Nigel Armine was Mrs. Chepstow, andutterly impossible. Now she is married again she may think she will be received, but she never will be. Of course, if she could have had the luck one day to become Lady Harwich, it might have become possible. A great position like that naturally makes people think differently. And, after all, the woman is married now. But no use talking about it! The twins have effectually knocked that possibility on the head. They say she nearly went mad with fury when she heard the news. It seems he had never given her a hint before the wedding. Wise man! He evidently knew his Mrs. Chepstow. Nevertheless, to give the devil her due, I hear she seems quite wrapped up in her husband. I saw him for a minute the other day, when I was crossing to go to the tombs of the Kings. He was looking awfully ill, I thought, such an extraordinary colour! I didn't see her, but they say she looks younger than ever, and much more beautiful than when she was in London. Marriage evidently suits her, though it doesn't seem to suit him," etc., etc.
This letter arrived by an evening post, and Isaacson read it after his day's work was done. When he had finished it, he took out from a drawer Nigel's letter to him, which he had kept, and compared the two. It was not necessary to do this, for Nigel's words were in his memory. Isaacson could not have said exactly why he did it. The sight of the two letters side by side made a strongly disagreeable impression upon him, and perhaps, in comparing them thus, he had almost unconsciously been seeking such an impression.
"Never in my life have I been in such splendid health."
"He was looking awfully ill—such an extraordinary colour!"
What had happened between the writing of the first letter and the writing of the last? What had produced this change?
After a few minutes, Isaacson put both the letters away and softly shut the drawer of the writing-table. He had dined. The night was his. He had his nargeeleh brought, and told Henry that he was not to be disturbed.
Not since that night of autumn when Nigel had said of Mrs. Chepstow, "She talks of coming to Egypt for the winter," had Isaacson taken the long and snake-like pipe-stem into his hand. Only when his mind was specially alive, almost excitedly alive, and when he wished to push that vitality to its limit, did he instinctively turn to the nargeeleh. Then his fingers and his lips needed it. His eyes needed it, too. Some breath of the East ran through him, stirring inherited instincts, inherited needs, to life. Now he turned out all the electric lights, he sat down in the dim glow from the fire, and he took once again, eagerly, between his thin fingers the snake-like stem of the nargeeleh. The water bubbled in the cocoanut. He filled his lungs with the delicious tumbák, he let it out in clouds through his nostrils.
London slept, and he sat there still. In his shining eyes the intense life of his mind was revealed. But there was no one to mark it, no one with him to love or to fear it.
At last, in the very deep of the night, he got up from his chair. He sat down at his writing-table. And he worked till the morning came, writing letters to patients whose names he looked out in his book of appointments, and whose addresses he turned up in the Red Book, or found in letters which he had kept by him, going through accounts, studying his bank-book, writing to his banker and his stockbroker, to hospitals with which he was connected, to societies for which he sometimes delivered addresses; doing a multitude of things which might surely—might they not?—have waited till day. And when at length there was a movement in the house which told of the servants awakening, he pushed the bell with a long finger.
Presently Henry came, trying to hide a look of amazement.
"Directly Cook's office in Piccadilly opens I shall want this letter taken there. The messenger must wait for an answer."
He held out a letter.
"Yes, sir."
"All these are for the post."
"Yes, sir."
"You might order Arthur to get ready my bath."
"Yes, sir."
The doctor stood up.
"I shall see patients to-day. To-morrow, or the next day, at latest, I shall leave London. I'm going to Egypt for a few weeks."
There was a pause. Then Henry uttered his formula.
"Yes, sir," he murmured.
He turned and went slowly out.
His sloping shoulders looked as if the Heavens had fallen—on them.
Isaacson refused to get into the omnibus at the station in Cairo, and drove to Shepheard's Hotel in a victoria, drawn by a pair of lean grey horses with long manes and tails. The coachman was an Arab much pitted with smallpox, who wore the tarbush with European clothes. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and the streets of the enticing and confusing city were crowded. Isaacson sat up very straight and looked about him with eager eyes. He felt keenly excited. This was his very first taste of Eastern life. Never before had he set foot in his "own place." Already, despite the zest shed through him by novelty, he had an odd, happy feeling of being at home. He saw here and there houses with white façades, before which palm-trees were waving. And in those houses he knew he could be very much at ease. The courtyards, the steps, the tiles, a fountain, small rugs, a divan, a carved dark door, a great screen of wood hiding an inner apartment—could he not see within? He had never entered that house there on the left, and yet he knew it. And this throng of Eastern men, with dark, keen, shining eyes, with heavy, slumbrous eyes, with eyes glittering with the yellow fires of greed; this throng, yellow-skinned, brown-skinned, black-skinned, with thin, expressive hands, with henna-tinted nails, with narrow, cunning wrists; this throng that talked volubly, that gesticulated, that gazed, observing without self-consciousness, summing up without pity, whose eyes took all and gave nothing—if he stepped out of the carriage, if he forsook the borrowed comforts and the borrowed delights of Europe, if he hid himself in this throng, would he not find himself for the first time?
He was sorry when the carriage drew up before the great terrace of the hotel. But he had not lost touch with the pageant. He realized that, almost with a sensation of exultation, when he came down from his room between four and five o'clock, and took a seat by the railing.
"Tea, sir?"
He nodded to the German waiter. Somewhere a band was playing melodies of Europe. That night he would seek in the native quarter the whining and syncopated tunes of the East.
The tea was brought, and an Arab approached with papers: the "Sphinx," a French paper published in Cairo, and London papers, the "Times," the "Morning Post." Isaacson bought two or three, vaguely. It was but rarely he felt vague, but now, as he sipped his tea, his excitement was linked with something else, that seemed misty and nebulous, yet not free from a sort of enchantment. By the railing, before and beneath him, a world of many of his dreams—his nargeeleh dreams—flowed by. The abruptness of his decision to come—that made half the enchantment of his coming, made a wonder of his arrival. The boy in him was alive to-day, but with the boy there stood the dreamer.
The terrace, of course, was crowded. People of many nations sat behind and on each side of Meyer Isaacson, walked up and down the broad flight of steps that connected the terrace with the pavement, stared, gesticulated, gossiped. There was a clatter of china. Girls in long veils munched cakes, and, more delicately, ate ices tinted pink, pale green, and almond colour. Elderly ladies sat low in basket chairs, almost dehumanized by sight-seeing. Antiquarians argued and protested, shaking their forefingers, browned by the sun that shines in the desert. American business men, on holiday, smoked large cigars, and invited friends from New York, Boston, Washington to dinner. European boys, smartly dressed, full of life and gaiety, went eagerly up and down excitedly retailing experiences. And perpetually carriages drove up, set down, and departed, while a lean, beautifully clad Arab with grey hair noted hours, prices, numbers, in a mysterious book.
But Meyer Isaacson all the time was watching the Easterns who passed and repassed in the noisy street. He had not even glanced keenly once at the crowd of travellers to see if there were any whom he knew, patients, friends, enemies. His usual sharp consciousness of those about him was for once completely in abeyance.
Presently, however, his attention was transferred from the street to the terrace, carried thither, so it seemed to him, by a man who moved from the one to the other. There passed in front of him slowly one of the most perfectly built mail phaetons he had ever seen. It was very high and large, but looked elegantly light, and it was drawn by a pair of superb Russian horses, jet-black, full of fiery spirit, matched to a hair, and with such grand action that it was an æsthetic pleasure to look upon them moving.
Sitting alone in the front of the phaeton was the man who, almost immediately, was to draw Isaacson's attention to the terrace. He was Mahmoud Baroudi. He was dressed in a light grey suit, and wore the tarbush. Behind him sat a very smart little English groom, dressed in livery, with a shining top-hat, breeches, and top-boots. The phaeton was black with scarlet wheels. The silver on the harness glittered with polish; the chains which fastened the horses to the scarlet pole gleamed brilliantly in the sunshine. But it was Baroudi, his extraordinary physique, his striking, nonchalant face, and his first-rate driving, which attracted all eyes, which held Isaacson's eyes. He pulled up his horses in front of the steps. The groom was down in a moment. Baroudi gave him the reins, got out, and walked up to the terrace. He stood for a moment, looking calmly round; then brought his right hand to his tarbush as he saw a party of French friends, which he immediately joined. They welcomed him with obvious delight. Two of them, perfectly dressed Parisian women, made room for him between them. As he sat down, smiling, Isaacson noticed his slanting eyebrows and his magnificent throat, which looked as strong as the throat of a bull.
"My dear Isaacson! Is it possible? I should almost as soon have expected to meet the Sphinx in Cleveland Square!"
A tall man, not much over thirty, with light, imaginative, yet penetrating eyes, stood before him, and with a "May I?" sat down beside him, after cordially grasping his hand.
"Starnworth, you're one of the few men—I might say almost the only man—I'm glad to meet at this moment. "Where have you just come from, or where are you just going? I can't believe you are going to stay in Cairo."
"No. I've been in Syria, just arrived from Damascus. I've been with a caravan—yes, I'll have some tea. I'm going to start to-morrow or next day from Mena House for another little desert trip."
"Little! How many days?"
"Oh, I don't know," said the newcomer, negligently. "Three weeks out and three weeks back, I believe—something like that—to visit an oasis where there are some extraordinary ruins. But why are you here? What induced you to leave your innumerable patients?"
After a very slight hesitation Isaacson answered:
"A whim."
"The deuce! Can doctors who are the rage permit themselves to be governed by whims?"
This man, Basil Starnworth, was an English nomad who for years had steeped himself in the golden East, who spoke Arabic and innumerable Eastern dialects, who was more at home with Bedouins than with his own brothers, and who was a mine of knowledge about the natives of Syria, of Egypt, and the whole of Northern Africa—about their passions, their customs, their superstitions, and all their ways of life. Isaacson had cured him of a malarial fever contracted on one of his journeys. That night they dined together, and after dinner Starnworth took Isaacson to see some of the native quarters of the town.
It was towards eleven o'clock when Isaacson found himself sitting in a small, rude café that was hidden in the very bowels of Cairo. Through winding alleys they had reached it—alleys full of painted ladies, alleys gleaming with the lights shed from solitary candles set within entries tinted mauve, and blue, and scarlet, or placed half-way up narrow flights of whitewashed stairs. And in these winding alleys, mingled with human cries, and laughter, and murmured invitations, and barterings, and refusals, there had been music that seemed to wind on and on in ribands of sound—music that was hoarse and shrill and weary, that was piercing, yet at the same time furtive—music that was provocative, and yet that was often sad, with a strange sadness of the desert and of desire among the sands. Even now, in the maze around this café, there was another maze of sound, the tripping notes of Eastern dance tunes, the wail of the African hautboy, the twitter of little flutes that set the pace for the pale Circassians, the dull murmur of daraboukkehs.
An old Arab who was "hâjjee" brought them coffee, straight from the glowing embers. Starnworth took from his pocket a little box of tobacco and cigarette-papers, and deftly rolled two cigarettes. There were but few people in the café, and they were Easterns—two Egyptians, a negro, and three soldiers from the Soudan, black, thin almost as snakes, with skins so dry that they looked like the skins of some reptiles of the sands. And these Easterns were almost motionless, and seemed to be sunk in dreams.
"Why did you bring me here?" asked Isaacson.
"It bores you?"
"No. But I want to know why you chose this café out of all the cafés of Cairo."
"It's a very old and, among Easterns, very famous resort of smokers of hashish. You notice the blackened walls, the want of light. The hashish smoker does not desire any luxury or brightness. He wants his dream, and he gets it here. You would scarcely suppose it, but there are rich Egyptians of the upper classes, men who are seen at official receptions, who go to the great balls at the smart hotels, and who slink in here secretly night after night, mingle with the lowest riff-raff, to have their dream beneath this blackened roof. There is one coming in now."
As he spoke, Mahmoud Baroudi appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in native costume—very poorly dressed; wore a dingy turban, and a long gibbeh of discoloured cloth. With the usual salaam, muttered in his throat, he went into the farthest and darkest corner of the café and squatted down on the floor. The old Arab carried to him in a moment a gozeh, a pipe resembling a nargeeleh, but without the snake-like handle. Baroudi took it for a moment, inhaled the smoke of the hashish, and poured it out from his mouth and nostrils.
"He looks like a poor Egyptian," said Isaacson, almost in a whisper.
"He is a millionaire. By the way, didn't you see him this afternoon?"
"Where?"
"At Shepheard's. He drove up just before I saw you in a phaeton."
"The man with the Russian horses! Surely, it's impossible!"
"This afternoon he was the cosmopolitan millionaire. To-night he sinks down into his native East."
"Who is he?"
"Mahmoud Baroudi."
"Mahmoud Baroudi!" repeated Isaacson, slowly and softly.
An old man who had crept in began to sing in a high and quavering voice a song of the smokers of hashish, accompanying himself upon an instrument of tortoise and goat-skin. A youth in skirts began to posture and dance an unfinished dance of the dreamer who has been led by hashish into a world that is sweet and vague.
"I'll tell you about him later," whispered Starnworth.
That night they sat up in the hotel till the third time of the Moslem's prayer was near at hand. Starnworth, pleased to have an auditor who was much more than merely sympathetic, who understood his Eastern lore as if with a mind of the East, poured forth his curious knowledge. And Isaacson gripped it as only the Jew can grip. He listened and listened, saying little, until Starnworth began to speak of the strange immutability that is apparent in Islâm, and of how the East must ever, despite the most powerful outside influences, remain utterly the East.
"Or so it seems up to now," he said.
He illustrated and emphasized his contention by a number of striking examples. He spoke of Arabs, of Egyptians he had known intimately, whom he had seen subjected to every kind of European influence, whom he had even seen apparently "Europeanized," as he put it, but who, when the moment came, had shown themselves "native" to the core.
"And it is even so when there is mingled blood," he said. "For instance, that man you saw to-night smoking hashish, wrapped up in that dirty old gibbeh, had a Greek mother, and may have—no doubt has—some aptitudes, some characteristics that are Greek, but they are dominated, almost swallowed up by the East that is in him."
"Do you know him?"
"I have never spoken to him, but I have heard a great deal about him—from Egyptians, mind you, as well as Europeans. With the English, and foreigners generally, he is an immense success. He is a very clever man, and has excellent qualities, I believe. But he is of the East. He is capable of giving one—who does not know very much—the most profound surprises. To ordinary eyes he shows nothing, nothing of what he is. He seems calm, dominating, practical, even cold and businesslike, full always of the most complete self-possession, calculating, but generous, and kind, charming, polished, suave and indifferent, with a sort of tremendously masculine indifference. I have often seen him in society. Even to me he has given that type of impression."
"And what is the real man?"
"Red-hot under the crust, a tremendous hater and a simply tremendous lover. But he hates with his soul and he loves with his body—they say. They say he's the slave of his soul in hatred, the slave of his body in love. He's committed crimes for women, if I ever get truth from my native friends. And I believe I am one of the few Europeans who can get a good deal of truth from the natives."
"Crimes, you say?"
"Yes," returned Starnworth, with his odd, negligent manner, which suggested a man who would undertake a desert journey full of tremendous hardships clad in a dressing-gown and slippers.
"But not for his own women, not for the beauties of the East. Baroudi is one of the many Egyptians who go mad over the women of Europe and of the New World, who go mad over their fairness of skin, their delicate colouring and shining hair. There was a dancer at the opera house here one season—a Dane she was, all fairness, the Northern sunbeam type—"
"I know."
"He spent thousands upon her. Gave her a yacht, took her off in it to the Greek islands and Naples. Presently she wanted to marry."
"Him?"
"A merchant of Copenhagen, a very rich man. Baroudi was charming about it. The merchant came out to Cairo during the dancer's second season at the opera. Baroudi entertained him, became his friend, talked business, impressed the Dane immensely with his practical qualities, put him up to some splendid 'specs.' Result—the Dane was ruined, and went back to Copenhagen minus his fortune and—naturally—minus his lady-love."
"And what became of her?"
"I forget. Don't think I ever knew. She vanished from the opera house. But the best of it is that the Dane to this day swears by Baroudi, and thinks it was his own folly that did for him. There are much worse things than that, though. Baroudi's a man who would stick at absolutely nothing once he got the madness for a woman into his body. For instance—"
He told stories of Baroudi, stories which the Europeans of Egypt knew nothing of, but which some Egyptians knew and smiled at; one or two of them sounded very ugly to European ears.
"He's a Turco-Egyptian, you know," Starnworth said, presently, "and has the cunning that comes from the Bosphorus grafted on to the cunning that flourishes beneath the indifference of the Sphinx. We should call him a rank bad lot"—the dressing-gown and slippers manner was very much in evidence just here—"but the Turco-Egyptian has a different code from ours. I must say I admire the man. He's got so much grit in him. Worker, lover, hater—there's grit and go in each. Whichever bobs up, bobs up to win right out. But it's the madness for women that really rules the fellow's life, according to Egyptians who are near him and who know him well. And that's so with far more men of Eastern blood than you would suppose, unless you'd lived among them and knew them as I do. Arabs will literally run crazy for a fair face. So will Egyptians. And once they are dominated, they are dominated to an extent an Englishman would scarcely be able to understand. I knew an Arab of the Sahara who broke down the palm-wood door of an auberge at El-Kelf and cut the throat of the Frenchwoman who kept it, cut it while she was screaming her soul out—and only to get the few francs in the till to send to a girl in Paris he'd met at the great Exhibition. And the old Frenchwoman had befriended that man for over sixteen years, had almost brought him up from a boy, had written his letters for him to the tourists and sportsmen whose guide he was. Mahmoud Baroudi would do as much for a woman, once he'd got the madness for her into his body, but he'd do it in a more brainy way."
Starnworth talked on and on. The time of the third prayer was at hand when at last he said good-night. Turning at the door, just as he was going out, he looked at Isaacson with his light and imaginative eyes.
"A different code from ours, you see!" he murmured.
He went out and gently shut the door.
Although it was so late and Isaacson had that day arrived from a journey, he felt strongly alive, and as if no power to sleep were in him. Of course, he must go to bed, nevertheless. Slowly he began to undress, slowly and reluctantly.
And he was in Cairo, actually in Cairo! All around him in the night was Cairo, with its houses full of Egyptians sleeping, with its harîms, with its mosques! Not far away was the Sphinx looking east in the sand!
He pottered about his room. He did things very slowly. Eastern life, as it had flowed from the lips of Starnworth, went before his imagination like a great and strange procession. And in this procession Mahmoud Baroudi drove Russian horses, and walked, almost like a mendicant, in a discoloured gibbeh. And then the procession stopped, and Isaacson saw the dingy café in the entrails of Cairo, and Mahmoud Baroudi crouched upon the floor drawing the smoke of the hashish into his nostrils.
At last Isaacson was in pajamas and ready for bed. But still his mind was terribly wide awake. The papers he had bought in the afternoon were lying upon his table. Should he read a little to compose his mind? He took up a paper—theMorning Post—opened it, and glanced casually over the middle page.
"Sudden death of the Earl of Harwich."
So Nigel's brother was gone, and, but for the twin boys so recently arrived, Mrs. Armine would at this moment be Countess of Harwich!
Isaacson read the paragraph quickly; then he put the paper down and opened his window. He wanted to think in the air. As he leaned out to the silent city, faintly, as if from very far off, he heard a cry that thrilled through his blood and set his pulses beating.
From a minaret a mueddin was calling the faithful to prayer, at "fegr," when the sun pushes the first ray of steel-coloured light, like the blade of a distant lance, into the breast of the East.
"Al-là-hu-akbar! Al-là-hu-ak-bar!"
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 theLoulia. 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—theLoulia?"
"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 theLoulia. 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 theFatmaas 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 theFatmacrept 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 theFatmaup stream against the tide till she came to a lonely place where two men were vehemently working a shadûf. 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 fellahîn, 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 fellahîn failed. The stars came out. Just where theLouliahad lain theFatmalay. 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 theLouliahad 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 theLouliahad 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 Armineménagewas that Nigel Armine had got sunstroke in Thebes and been "too ill for words," and that theLoulia, 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 theLoulia. 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 theLouliathe 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.
TheFatmawas no marvellous boat like theLoulia. 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.