e. When he returned to the _Fatma_, the afternoon was waning. In
the ethereal distance the _Loulia_ still lay motionless.

"We goin' now?" asked Hassan.

Isaacson shook his head.

"We goin' to-night?"

"I'll tell you when I want to go. You needn't keep asking me questions."

The dragoman was getting terribly on Isaacson's nerves. For a moment
Isaacson thought of dismissing him there and then, paying him handsomely
and sending him ashore now, on the instant. The impulse was strong, but
he resisted it. The fellow might possibly be useful. Isaacson looked at
him meditatively and searchingly.

"What can I doin' for my gentlemans?"

"Nothing, except hold your tongue."

Hassan retired indignantly.

While he had looked at Hassan, Isaacson had considered a proposition and
rejected it. He had thought of sending the dragoman with a note to the
_Loulia_. It would be simple enough to invent an excuse for the note.
Hassan might see Nigel--would see Nigel, if a hint were given him to do
so. But he would no doubt also see Mrs. Armine; and--if Isaacson's
instinct were not utterly astray in a wilderness of absurdity and
error--she would make more use of Hassan than he ever could. The
dragoman's face bore the sign-manual of treachery stamped upon it. And
Mrs. Armine would be more clever in using treachery than Isaacson. He
appreciated her talent at its full value.

While he had been in the temple of Edfou he had come to a conclusion
with himself. Entirely alone in the semi-darkness of the most perfect
building, and the most perfectly calm building, that he had ever
entered, he had known his own calm and what his instinct told him in it.
Had he not spent those hours in Edfou, possibly he might have denied the
insistent voice of his instinct. Now he would heed that voice, certain
that it was no unreasonable ear that was listening.

He saw the tapering mast of the _Loulia_ against the thin, magical gold
of the sky at sunset. He saw it against the even more magical primrose,
pale green, soft red, of the after-glow. He saw it black as ink in the
livid spasm of light that the falling night struck away from the river,
the land, the sky. And then he saw it no more.

His sailors began to sing a song of the Nile, sitting in a circle around
a bowl that had been passed from hand to hand. He dined quickly.

Hassan came to ask if he might go ashore. He had friends in the native
village, and wished to see them. Isaacson told him to go. A