When she had sent her note to the Fatma, Mrs. Armine had secretly telegraphed to Doctor Hartley, begging him to come to the Loulia as quickly as possible. She had implied to Isaacson that he would arrive about four the next day. Perhaps she had forgotten, or had not known how the trains ran from Assouan.
However that was, Doctor Hartley arrived many hours before the time mentioned by Mrs. Armine for a consultation, and was in full possession of the case and in command of the patient while Isaacson was still on the Fatma.
Isaacson had not slept all night. That dream of the Nile into which he had softly sunk was gone, was as if it never had been. His instinct was to start for the Loulia at daybreak. But for once he denied this instinct. Cool reason spoke in the dawn saying, "Festina lente." He listened. He held himself in check. After his sleepless night, in which thought had been feverish, he would spend some quiet, lonely hours. There was, he believed, no special reason, after the glance he had sent to Mrs. Armine just before he went out of Nigel's cabin, why he should hurry in the first hour of the new day to the sick man he meant to cure. Let the sleeping draught do its work, and let the clear morning hours correct any fever in his own mind.
And so he rested on deck, while the sun climbed the pellucid sky, and he watched the men at the shadûf. The sunlight struck the falling water and made it an instant's marvel. And the marvel recurred, for the toil never ceased. The naked bodies bent and straightened. The muscles stood out, then seemed to flow away, like the flowing water, on the arms under the bronze-coloured skin. And from lungs surely made of brass came forth the fierce songs that have been thrown back from the Nile's brown banks perhaps since the Sphinx first set his unworldly eyes towards eternity.
But though Isaacson deliberately paused to get himself very thoroughly and calmly in hand, paused to fight with possible prejudice and drive it out of him, he did not delay till the hour fixed by Mrs. Armine. Soon after one o'clock in the full heat of the day, he set out in the tiny tub which was the only felucca on board of the Fatma, and he took Hassan with him. Definitely why he took Hassan, he perhaps could not have stated. He just thought he would take him, and did.
Very swiftly he had returned with the tide in the night. Now, in the eye of day, he must go up river against it. The men toiled hard, lifting themselves from their seats with each stroke of the oars and bracing their legs for the strain. But the boat's progress was slow, and Isaacson sometimes felt as if some human strength were striving persistently to repel him. He had the sensation of a determined resistance which must be battled with ruthlessly. And now and then his own body was tense as he watched his men at their work. But at last they drew near to the Loulia, and his keen, far-seeing eyes searched the balcony for figures. He saw none. The balcony was untenanted. Now it seemed to him as if in the fierce heat, upon the unshaded water, the great boat was asleep, as if there was no life in her anywhere; and this sensation of the absence of life increased upon him as they came nearer and nearer. All round the upper deck, except perhaps on the land side of the boat, which he could not see, canvas was let down. Shutters were drawn over the windows of the cabins. The doors of the room of the fountain were open, but the room was full of shadow, which, from his little boat, the eyes of Isaacson could not penetrate. As they came alongside no voice greeted them. He began to regret having come in the hour of the siesta. They glided along past green shutter after green shutter till they were level with the forward deck. And there, in an attitude of smiling attention, stood the tall figure of Ibrahim.