minute
later, with a swish of skirts, the tall figure vanished over the gangway
and up the bank.

The sailors went on singing, throwing back their heads, swaying them,
rocking gently to and fro and from side to side. They were happy and
intent.

Isaacson let five minutes go by; then he followed Hassan's example. He
crossed the gangway, climbed the bank, and stood still on the flat
ground which dominated the river.

The night was warm, almost lusciously warm, and very still. The sky was
absolutely clear, but there was no moon, and the river, the flats, the
two ranges of mountains that keep the Nile, were possessed by a gentle
darkness. As Isaacson stood there, he saw the lights on the _Fatma_
gleaming, he heard the sad and tempestuous singing of his men, and the
barking of dogs on hidden houses keeping guard against imagined
intruders. When he looked at the lights of the _Fatma_, he realized how
the boat stood to him for home. He felt almost desolate in leaving her
to adventure forth in the night.

But he turned southwards and looked up-river. Far away--so it seemed,
now the night was come--isolated in the darkness, was a pattern of
lights. And high above them, apparently hung in air, there was a blue
jewel. Isaacson knew it for a lamp fixed against the mast of the
_Loulia_. He put his hand down to his hip-pocket. Yes, his revolver was
safely there. He lit a cigar, then, moved by an after-thought, threw it
away. Its tip hissed as it struck the river. He looked at that blue
jewel, at the diaper of yellow below it, and he set out upon his
nocturnal journey.

At first he walked very slowly and cautiously. But soon his eyes, which
were exceptionally strong-sighted, became accustomed to the gloom, and
he could see his way without difficulty. Now and then he looked back,
rather as a man going into a tunnel on foot may look back to the orifice
which shows the light of day. He looked back to his home. And each time
it seemed to have receded from him. And at last he felt he was homeless.
Then he looked back no more, but always forward to the pattern of light
that marked where the _Loulia_ lay. And then--why was that?--he felt
more homeless still. Perhaps he was possessed by the consciousness of
moving towards an enemy. Men feel very differently in darkness and in
light. And in darkness their thought of an individual sometimes assumes
strange contours. Now Isaacson's imagination awoke, and led his mind
down paths that were