hich 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.

XXXI

Upon a hard and habitual worker an unexpected holiday sometimes has a
weakening rather than a strengthening effect, in the first days of it.
Later may come from it vitality and a renewal of energy. Just at first
there steals over the worker a curious lassitude. Parts of him seem to
lie down and sleep. Other parts of him are dreaming.

So it was now with Meyer Isaacson.

He got up from his Spartan bed feeling alert and animated. He went up on
deck full of curiosity and expectation. But as the day wore on, the long
day of golden sunshine, the dream of the Nile took him slowly, quietly,
to its breast. Strange were the empty hours to this man whose hours
were generally so full. And the solitude was strange. For he sent Hassan
away, and sat alone on the upper deck--alone save for the Reis, who,
like a statue, stood behind him holding the mighty helm.

The _Fatma_ travelled slowly, crept upon the greenish-brown water almost
with the deliberation of some monstrous water-insect. For she journeyed
against the tide, and as yet there was little wind, though what there
was blew from the north. The crew had to work hard in the burning
sun-rays, going naked upon the bank and straining at the tow-rope.
Isaacson sat in a folding chair and watched their toil. For years he had
not known the sensation of watching in absolute idleness the strenuous
exertion of others. Those ex