Bella Donna Part 83

His eyes began to ache. His eyelids tickled. He rubbed his eyes, blinked, put up the gla.s.ses, 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 gla.s.s. As he did so, he saw the crafty eyes of Ha.s.san watching him from the lower deck. He longed to give Ha.s.san a knock-down blow, but he pretended not to have seen him.

He sat down on a deck-chair, out of range of Ha.s.san'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 Ha.s.san 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."

Ha.s.san did not move.

"I waitin' for--"

"Go away!"

Isaacson had never before spoken so roughly, so almost ferociously to a dependant. When Ha.s.san 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 pa.s.s us by without a call_, and do be kind and wait for us at a.s.souan. 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 a.s.souan. If you are the least anxious about your friend, when you get to a.s.souan 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 pa.s.sing 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 Ha.s.san'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 Ha.s.san.

As Ha.s.san 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 a.s.souan--Gebel Silsile, Kom Ombos, then a.s.souan. 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 a.s.souan 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 gla.s.s through which each looked upon the other.

He picked up the field-gla.s.s again, and held it to his eyes.