s mouth.

"Rheumatism?" he repeated, when Nigel had swallowed the draught.

"Yes. I have it awfully badly, like creatures gnawing me almost."

He sighed, and lay lower in the bed.

"I can't understand it. Rheumatism in this perfect climate!" he
murmured.

Mrs. Armine made an ostentatious movement as if to go away and leave
them together.

"No, don't go, Ruby," Nigel said.

He felt for her hand.

"I want you--you two to be friends," he said. "Real friends. Isaacson,
you don't know what she's been in--in all this bad time. You don't
know."

His feeble voice broke.

"I'll be here to-morrow," said Isaacson, after a pause.

"Yes, come. You must put me--right."

Mrs. Armine could not accompany Isaacson to the felucca or say a word to
him alone, for Nigel kept, almost clung to, her hand.

"I must stay with him till he sleeps," she almost whispered as Isaacson
was going.

She was bending slightly over the bed. Some people might have thought
that she looked like the sick man's guardian angel, but Isaacson felt an
intense reluctance to leave the dahabeeyah that night.

He looked at Mrs. Armine for a moment, saw that she fully received his
look, and went away, leaving her still in that beautifully protective
attitude.

He came out on deck. The felucca was waiting. He got into it, and was
rowed out into the river by two sailors. As they rowed they began to
sing. The lights of the _Loulia_ slipped by, yellow light after yellow
light. From above the blue light looked down like a watchful eye. The
darkness of the water, like streaming ebony, took the felucca and the
fateful voices. And the tide gave its help to the oarsmen. The lights
began to dwindle when Isaacson said to the men:

"Hush!"

He held up his hand. The Nubians lay on their oars, surprised. The
singing died in their throats.

Across the water there came a faint but shrill sound of laughter. Some
one was laughing, laughing, laughing, in the night.

The Nubians stared at each other, the man who was stroke turning his
head towards his companion.

Faint cries followed the laughter, and then--was it not the sound of a
woman, somewhere sobbing dreadfully?

Isaacson listened till it died away.

Then, with a stern, tense face, he nodded to the Nubians.

They bent again to the oars, and the felucca dropped down the Nile.

XXXVI

When she had sent her note to the _Fatma_, Mrs. Armine had secretly
telegraphed to Doctor Hartley, begging him