im.

"My gentlemans, the Noobian peoples waitin' for what you say to the nice
lady."

Isaacson got up and looked over the rail.

Below lay a white felucca containing two sailors, splendidly handsome
black men, who were squatting on their haunches and smoking cigarettes.
In the stern of the boat, behind a comfortable seat with a back, was
Hamza, praying. As Isaacson looked down, the sailors saluted. But Hamza
did not see him. Hamza bowed down his forehead to the wood, raised
himself up, holding his hands to his legs, and prostrated himself again.
For a moment Isaacson watched him, absorbed.

"Hamza very good donkey-boy, always prayin'."

It was Hassan's eternal voice. Isaacson jerked himself up from the rail.

"Ask if the lady expected an answer," he said. "They don't speak
English, I suppose?"

"No, my gentlemans."

He spoke in Arabic. A sailor replied. Hamza always prayed.

"The lady him say p'raps you writin' somethin'."

"Very well."

Isaacson sat down, took a pen and paper. But what should be his answer?
He read Mrs. Armine's letter again. She was Nigel's wife, mistress of
Nigel's dahabeeyah. It was impossible, therefore, for him to insist on
going on board, not merely without an invitation, but having been
requested not to come. And yet, had she told Nigel his friend was in
Egypt? Apparently not. She did not say she had or she had not. But the
detective felt certain she had held her peace. Well, the sailors were
waiting, and even that bronze Hamza could not pray for ever.

Isaacson dipped the pen in the ink, and wrote.

"That's for the lady," he said, giving the note to Hassan.

As Hassan went down the stairs, holding up his djelabieh, Isaacson got
up and looked once more over the rail. His eyes met the eyes of Hamza.
But Hamza did not salute him. Isaacson was not even certain that Hamza
saw him. The sailors threw away the ends of their cigarettes. They bent
to the oars. The boat shot out into the gold. And once more Isaacson
heard the murmuring chant that suggested doom. It diminished, it
dwindled, it died utterly away. And always he leant upon the rail, and
he watched the creeping felucca, and he wished that he were in it, going
to see his friend.

What was he going to do?

Again he began to pace the deck. It was not very far to Assouan--Gebel
Silsile, Kom Ombos, then Assouan. It was some hundred and ten
kilometres. The steamers did it in thirteen hours. But the _Fatma_,
going always against