That day she contented Nigel, she fascinated him, she charmed him with her flow of animal spirits. He could deny her nothing. And when, laughingly, she begged him, as she had dispensed with a maid, to let her have her own special donkey-boy and donkey in the Fayyûm, he was ready to acquiesce.
"We'll take Mohammed, of course, if you wish," he said, heartily, "though there are lots of donkey-boys to be got where we are going."
"I've given up Mohammed," she said.
He looked surprised.
"Have you? What's he done?"
"Nothing specially. But I prefer Hamza."
"The praying donkey-boy!"
"Yes."
She paused; then, looking away from him, she said slowly: "There's something strange to me and interesting about him. I think it comes, perhaps, from his intense belief in his religion, his intense devotion to the Moslem's faith. I--I can't help admiring that, and I should like to take Hamza with us. He's so different from all the others."
Then, with a changed and lighter tone, she added: "Besides, his donkey is the best on the river. It comes from Syria, and is a perfect marvel. Give me Hamza, his donkey, and Ibrahim as my suite, and you shall never hear a complaint from me, I promise you."
"Of course you shall have them," he said. "I like the man to whom his beliefs mean something, even if they're not mine and could never be mine."
So the fate of Hamza and Ibrahim was very easily settled.
But when Nigel called Ibrahim, and told him that he had decided on taking him and Hamza to the Fayyum, and that he was to tell Hamza at once, Ibrahim looked a little doubtful.
"All what my gentleman want I do," he said. "But Hamza do much business in Luxor; I dunno if him come to the Fayyum."
He glanced deprecatingly at Mrs. Armine.
"I very glad to come, but about Hamza I dunno."
He spoke with such apparent sincerity that she was almost deceived, and thought that perhaps some difficulty had really arisen.
"Offer him his own terms," exclaimed Nigel, "and I'll bet he'll be glad to come."
"I go to see, my gentleman."
"You shall have him, Ruby, whatever his price," said Nigel.
Ibrahim, with great difficulty, he said, made a bargain with Hamza, and on the following day the Villa Androud was left in Hassan's charge, and the Armines went north by the evening express to Cairo, where they were to stay two days and nights, in order that Mrs. Armine might see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Nigel had already taken rooms at the Mena House, with a terrace exactly opposite to the Great Pyramid, and giving on to the sand of the desert.