"It's from her," he said. "She starts to-night, and will be here to-morrow morning early. She's in such a hurry to be back that she's only staying the one night in Cairo."
He looked across to Isaacson, who seemed startled.
"Is there anything the matter with you?" he asked.
"No. Why?"
"You don't look quite yourself."
"I feel perfectly well."
"Oh!"
Almost directly Isaacson made an excuse and got away. His decision was made. There was no more combat within him. But his heart was heavy, was sick, and he felt an acute and frightful nervousness, such as he could imagine being experienced by a man under sentence of death, who is not told on what day the sentence will be carried out. Apprehension fell over him like an icy rain in the sultry air.
He walked mechanically to the bank of the Nile.
To-day the water was like a sheet of glass, dimpled here and there by the wayward currents, and, because of some peculiar atmospheric effect, perhaps, the river looked narrower than usual, the farther bank less far off. Never before had Isaacson been so forcibly struck by the magical clearness of Egypt. Even in the midst of his misery, a misery which physically affected him, he stood still to marvel and to admire.
How near everything looked! How startlingly every detail of things stood out in this exquisite evening!
Presently his eyes went to the Loulia. She, too, looked strangely near, strangely distinct. He watched her, only because of that at first, but presently because he began to notice an unusual bustle on board. Men were moving rapidly about both on the lower and on the upper deck, were going here and there ceaselessly.
One man swarmed up the long and bending mast. Another clambered over the balcony-rail into the stern.
What did all this movement mean?
The master of the Loulia must surely be expected--the man Isaacson had seen driving the Russian horses, and, clothed almost in rags, squatting in the darkness of the hashish café in the entrails of Cairo.
And Bella Donna was hurrying back after only one night in Cairo!
Isaacson forgot the marvellous beauty of the declining day. In a few minutes he returned to the house. But immediately after dinner, leaving Nigel sitting on the terrace, he went again to the bank of the Nile.
The Loulia was illuminated from prow to stern. Light gleamed from every cabin window, and the crew had not only the daraboukkeh but the pipes on board, and were making the fantasia. Some of them, too, were dancing. Against a strong light on the lower deck, Isaacson saw black figures, sometimes relieved for a moment, moving with a wild grotesqueness, like crazy shadows.